Ever wonder what the first Christian communities were really
like? All love and peace and harmony,
right? And especially when Jesus was there, we can easily slip into this vision
of a wonderful party, with shades of Jesus Christ Superstar, of a bunch of nice
men basking in the glow of Jesus, who like those old paintings I remember from
Sunday School, shone even in the middle of the night, he was so holy.
Sweet, wonderful glow in the dark Jesus, going around and
healing people, hugging children, and being helpful and forgiving to everyone
he met. Acting like a shepherd, getting
his portrait painted with baby lambs in his arms and gazing thoughtfully up
into the sky.
Well, if that’s our picture of Jesus and his followers, how
do we deal with the scriptures today?
The book of James describes would-be Christians as greedy
assassins. Listen again, “You want
something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and
cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.” James was supposed to be the brother of
Jesus, and the leader of the people of Jerusalem. So here we have a vision of a rather drastic
Church community that James is trying to lead.
Mark’s gospel is not much better. The disciples are so wrapped up in their own
fighting that they are ashamed and embarrassed when Jesus asks them what they
were talking about. They don’t want to
admit that they don’t understand what he’s teaching. “I’m the greatest!” “No, I am!” the argument goes on and on until
Jesus challenges them. Just like two
kids yelling at each other in the basement when Mom or Dad asks, “What’s going
on down there?”
If we look for advice about being community, being church in
a challenging time, Jesus and James have the same message. Keep your big picture in mind. Don’t go hitting each other below the belt in
unfair fights. Don’t get greedy or
violent or selfish or manipulative.
That’s easier said than done. It’s much more fun to be the victim,
resenting how so and so treated me, or the way that I’m going to treat that
jerk who’s been attacking me and deserves to suffer. Revenge is a dish that’s best served up cold,
and get them before they get me, right?
Neither Jesus nor James agree. They don’t think much of the quarrels,
complaints, whining, grumbling and competitive jostling for power and status among
God’s followers. In short, don’t act
like some politicians who use fear and attack ads to tear down other
people. Don’t go below the belt, don’t
act aggressively. Don’t grasp after possessions
or power. Be more like children.
I don’t know about you, but children have been on my mind a
lot recently. First it was the
photograph of Alan Kurdi drowned on a beach after leaving Syria, then it was
the horrific story of Hailey
Dunbar-Blanchette in Blairmore. And just
yesterday more Syrian children drowned trying to cross to safety. So when I hear children in the gospel, that’s
what I imagine, a child like Alan or Hailey in the centre of a circle of
quarrelsome men.
Put a small child in the middle of a bunch of adults, and
watch the little ones play, be curious, ask for rides on shoulders, and have
very little in the way of power and authority.
A two year old is not going to run for Prime Minister, for example. And some of you might remember that children
were seen in the ancient world as having no status except as a possession of
their fathers’, and in some cultures, as disposable as the fathers saw fit.
Children are vulnerable.
They can’t feed themselves when they are very little, they need someone
to cook for them and provide for them.
They have to ask for help to even survive. They have no power over where they live, or
what conditions they live in. But they
do have the ability to ask. Even a
newborn will cry when it’s hungry in a bid to get help.
Here’s where I think James and Jesus both challenge us to
ask ourselves what is really important. What
do we want our children to feel: welcomed, accepted, loved, vindicated,
forgiven, liberated, and hopeful? If the
disciples had thought about what they had wanted in a different way, maybe instead
they could have said, “we’d like have a better future for our children, we’d
like to have more fair play and fair employment for ourselves and our
neighbors, we’d like to feel that we weren’t alone in the struggles of an
unfair government system, and we’d like to live free from oppression and the
threat of violence.
To me it sounds like they are both trying to lead us to
simplify what our purpose is in our lives.
To not get all caught up in the daily grind until we lose hope and
dignity and kindness, but to remember to connect our lives to a higher purpose,
a higher dream, a loftier hope. A dream
that never dies but keeps on showing us the way to a life where we can know
real peace and belonging, gentleness and all of that with true integrity and
trustworthiness in the service of something much bigger than ourselves, that
will leave behind a legacy we can be proud of.
We can follow in the footsteps of James and the other quarrelsome
disciples who found themselves profoundly transformed into a community that
healed and encouraged, practised generosity and transparency for the greater
good of all no matter what your age. For
the vision of God’s beautiful, kind and peaceful community lived among us every
day. May we too work for such a vision of God’s kingdom among us.