Quick question – what makes a Baptist Church so different to others?
Well according to Adrian Plass to be Baptist is to belong to a “denomination in which one senses that there is as awful lot going on under the surface".
Let’s get serious now.
Over the last few weeks, some of us have been working through Brant Hansen’s teaching on ‘Offendable.’ Brant’s key point is that Christians should not be offendable. As Phil pointed out last week, most of what Brant was saying is that we should not let anger consume us and drive us. But as we finished Brant’s teaching, I began to think there must be something much deeper than ‘anger’ to this concept of ‘offendable.’ Surely, it is not just anger that causes us to take ‘offence’ at others? Sometimes it’s our broken human nature.
There have been times in my life where I have been ‘offended’ but not drawn to anger and there are times that I see the church take offence but this offence does not seem to come from anger alone; at times, we, as Christians, are offended simply because we do not understand someone or something that seems very different to who we are. And I am not meaning all Christians alone, all churches are made of people, all churches have their own flavour and culture and when one person or a group comes in and disrupts the culture of a church then the reaction of offence is much deeper than anger. To say it again, it’s our broken human nature. And, the Bible is clear on this, put aside your brokenness and become more Christ-like.
And I want to give you the key point of this sermon up front: to be truly unoffendable involves us accepting each other and accepting strangers who are different to us. When we do this, we can reach out to the world with compassion, not offence; with love, not hate. But we must get it right with ourselves first.
You see, a church’s reputation is not just forged through our outer works – it is also shaped by our inner behaviours – how we treat and walk with each other. In a weird way, there is a difference to being a member of a church to being a member of a crafts, reading, board game or sports club. In a club, you are still an individual. You can lock your life away and keep it separate to the club.
But, in a church, you are a member of a family, you are engaged in relationship with others. We speak it a lot in words, but it needs to be a reality – we are all part of the body of Christ – an arm cannot function by itself, it must be connected to the rest of the body. As the church we are not individuals – we stand together in a state of communion with Christ.
So, today, I would like to talk to you about the incarnational church. And I want to ask the question: If we are the incarnational church, what does that mean for the way that we journey with each other?
Let’s open God’s word to Ephesians 1, starting at verse 19:
I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe Him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms.
Now He is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made Him head over all things for the benefit of the church.
And the church is His body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with Himself.
(Eph 1:19-23 NLT)
I don’t know about you, but for me, one of the most complex and profound illustrations in the Bible is that of the church being the ‘body of Christ.’ I simply don’t get it most of the time. I read these verses in Ephesians and in Paul’s other letters and find myself asking – is this a metaphor; an illustration of sorts? Or is it a reality?
And, as I read, I realise it can’t be a metaphor if it is so integral to Paul’s writings. His letters are permeated with these words “Body of Christ.” It may not seem a big deal, but Paul refers to us, the church, as the body of Christ 11 times his 13 letters. So, in some way, we are the body of Christ today – but what does that really mean?
To understand that we are the body of Christ requires us to understand the Church through the incarnation of Christ.
We often don’t use this word ‘incarnation’ in church and when we do, it tends to be limited to Christmas. Incarnation comes from two Latin words ‘in’ which, in English, means much the same and ‘carō’ which in English means flesh. Carō is where we get the word carnivorous (meat-eating) and carnal (a word that has changed over time but once meant ‘of the physical flesh’ or ‘same blood’).
Incarnation simply means – in the flesh, in the physical flesh. We use it as a concept word to understand that Christ is God ‘in the flesh.’ So, the incarnation is when God became one of us to suffer with us and then offer himself in our place as the perfect sacrifice.
It is through the death of Christ on the Cross and His resurrection that we become one with him. His presence enters our being through the Holy Spirit and in a cosmic sense we enter His incarnation. We become one with Him and He becomes one with us. His presence is in us and, in that sense, the church is incarnational.
The church was not created by a guy or girl with an idea. It was created by God. The church is not one individual but a community of people who relate and journey with each other. And, added to all this, within each of us, Christ dwells through the Holy Spirit. This makes as, as one community, a new creation in God. Not as individuals all saved through the gospel but as a people called together to serve God and each other.
We don’t come to church, to this building, to ‘experience’ God. This would be an oxymoron to all of Paul’s teaching regarding God’s presence within us. Paul clearly tells us in 1 Cor 6:17-19 that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit – not a physical church building.
However, we do gather, and we do gather for a very real purpose. We gather to worship and to make God’s presence, that presence that is in each of us, known both inside and outside the physical walls of this building.
When it comes to the incarnational church, I know that it is easy to think that making God’s presence known is simply an outward gesture to our community. However, there is more to the incarnational church than the way we are seen on the outside. You see, I believe that to be incarnational in the community our church requires three internal unoffendable attitudes and behaviours: Relationship, Acceptance, Love
And, while we can show these traits or virtues to our community of Wainuiomata, it is imperative that we first demonstrate to each other the desire to create a relationship, to accept our brokenness or broken times and forge ourselves together through love. This involves journeying with each other, getting to know others and learning how to demonstrate love to others. We get to get it right in here first so that when we do it out there, we do get it right.
Let me use a parable of sorts.
Most of us, read parables today with the idea that they were serious mini sermons given by Christ to get a point across; however, there is more to parables which our definition has lost in translation. Parables were stories with key points, but they were often humorous and seemed to come to contradictory conclusions. For example, let’s take the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Jesus’ time, Samaritans were never described as good and would never be used to illustrate a neighbour. But when Jesus did it – he made people think about themselves and the relationship they had with their God and each other by picking out the outsiders in their society. A person that could offend anyone.
So, what would Relationship, Acceptance and Love look like in an incarnational church?
Well, I would like to introduce you to an individual - Lars
Lars is a bit of a loner, an outsider. He is living with brother’s family in the shed of their childhood home. Lars has no close friends, but he is connected to his local church and works with blokes that enjoy watching porn. Lars is soon to become an uncle and his brother is concerned that Lars will never develop any close relationships at all. And then this happens:
So, imagine this, you are part of Lars’ church community – you are an elder of sorts. After Lars’ brother finds out that Lars has purchased an anatomically correct doll from the Internet for a ‘relationship’, he visits his local doctor. The doctor tells him that Lars must be dealing with some stuff and that he should just treat the doll as human until Lars gets over it.
The brother is desperate – he knows that something is wrong and that he can’t support Lars – so he comes to you and asks for support and help as a church. So, after hearing the brother’s plea for help what would you do? To be honest, what would you initially think about Lars and what would you want the church to do – given that the church is a community of families including children and elderly? This is how Lars’ church responded:
Well, the church, and in fact the whole community, decide to accept Lars and his doll. To be honest they go beyond accepting to relating to both Lars and his doll with love. We learn that this acceptance is because the church had journeyed with Lars. It wasn’t an easy decision; it never is and never will be even in our church today; but they had begun a journey before the doll and when the doll arrived, they decided they needed to finish it to help Lars find healing.
To finish this story, Lars finds out what his problem is – a deep fear of touch and an inner emotional scar of a father that hurt had him. Bicana the doll gets sick and is rushed to hospital. She evidentially passes away and the church holds a funeral for her. It is one of the most emotional scenes in the movie because it shows that a church’s ability to accept Lars and journey with him in love overflows into other outsider groups in the community.
This church did not do any major ministry, it just walked with Lars in a time of emotional need. The impact of this walk saw the congregation of this church exponentially grow. A church of a few families ended up attracting bikies, hobos and just people looking for love. The tears shed at the funeral were real – this church had finally found out what it was like to be Christ in this world – to accept each other, to relate to each other and to walk with each other in love.
I don’t know about you, but when I watch a story like Lars, I realise that I would jump to judgement rather than love first; I would have been offended. I would assume that Lars had purchased the doll for sexual gratification and as such I would put conditions on my relationship with him. I would no doubt be the one that would go home at lunchtime and talk to Eric about the bizarre choices of our leaders allowing an adult to bring a doll to church … with all the children … what sort of example would they be setting.
And, then I realise as a person, a person sharing with you today, that I, like others, do engage in behaviours of conditional love, when I inadvertently hold back from developing a relationship with someone that is not like me or even engage in negative talk (gossip) in my church family. None of you bring a doll to church, but I could have it a guess that most of us come to church with rubbish in our lives – I know that I do.
And, when I think about this, I also realise that there are times that I am afraid to expose the rubbish in my life because I fear that others would develop a relationship of conditional love around me.
And, when I watched the story of Lars, I found myself challenged – would you really accept Lars Fiona? No, possibly not. I would think that things aren’t all right in his head and I would be scared to relate to him. Would you love Lars Fiona? Yes, of course, the Bible tells me to love everyone even those who offend me. But that’s okay, I don’t have to talk to Lars, and there are plenty of seats, so I can avoid him. And because I know that truth is buried in me, I am also scared to tell others about my own vulnerabilities in case I offend others by exposing my inner self.
You see at the end of the day – our church will be known by its changed heart which bring about actions leading to transformation in our own lives and in our community. Our church will be known to our God by what is going on under the surface. Our church will be known by our love and generosity to each other. It is not that we must accept everyone as a blank slate, but we must be prepared to journey with each person in love. The first step in this journey is relationship but, if we don’t, we have missed an opportunity.
And it is so important that we get it right with each other here first. There are broken and lost people in the world that so need God. There are people in the world that cause us offence but God has called us to walk with them but it is so hard when these people just might offend us.
This week we experienced a tragedy in Wellington with the Loafers Lodge fire. The Lodge was home, if you can call it that, to some of the most vulnerable people in Wellington, addicts, deportees from Australia (known as 501s), ex-prisoners on parole, the homeless and others. In response to that fire The Mayor of Wellington, Tory Whanau said: “We’ve failed a sector of our community. We’ve let some people down. We’ve let our vulnerable community down. And it shouldn’t take an accident of this nature to do that.”
And Jesus our saviour said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
I want to say that the incarnational church, is unoffendable, because deep in the core of the incarnational church is acceptance and love. This is demonstrated through the relationships we have with each other first, the ways we respond to each other in times of disagreement, the way in which we allow for diversity in our relationships and the way that we respond to the big issues in the world today. An incarnational church is a group of diverse people who can live life together and not be offended by each other and the world.
Let us be a church that is truly incarnational, not plastic, a church where there is so much happening under our surface because Christ is at work in us, and we are not afraid to open our hearts deeply to him and most of all to each other.
