Doing Jesus' Teachings
Doing Jesus' Teachings
May 22, 2022
John 14: 23 - 29
How one does Christianity has been a major issue in Church practices for centuries. As far as I can tell, it still is a primary concern in today’s environment. Hundreds – probably thousands -- of churches have closed over the last fifty years; my studies and reflections point to a simple matter: many, many people think that the church’s ways of doing Christianity are irrelevant to today’s culture, to today’s society. Therefore, they ignore the church and more or less leave Christianity.
So how we hear and do Jesus’ teachings is a big deal. It is a critical issue for our generation to study and to reconsider.
Most of you know that this issue is central to my returning to active ministry here at Mt. Salem Church. A couple years ago your Personnel (or Pastor-Parish Relations) Committee decided to accept my proposal to redevelop this traditional congregation and explore ways of reaching “spiritual but not religious” people and “post-religious” people. The book and video studies that we are doing are a first step in this work. They are good grounding for traditional Christians because we listen hard to the recorded words in the Bible as well as some of the other very early Christian writings that were written before and during the time of our canonical (biblical) writings.
You have been listening to me most Sundays for nearly two years. Over and over you have heard me point out the focus of lessons – doing life the way Jesus taught -- not saying the affirmations of the Church. Our sermons have focused on the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Everywhere we hear Jesus telling us to do Christianity. The Church has too often told us to believe what Jesus is saying; that isn’t working so well today. It is when people do life Jesus’ way that they come to understand and believe Christianity.
Today’s lesson in John 14 has a very stark and brutal statement presented as fact. Jesus is quoted as saying, 23“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.”
I think that we can reorder those phrases and properly say, “Those who keep Jesus’ words love Jesus, and God loves them.” Reordered, the next verse says, “Whoever does not keep Jesus’ words, does not love Jesus.” And, by the way, they are the Father’s words that are or are not being kept.
Is that clear? Shall I read it again?
Matthew has the Sermon on the Mount with love your enemies, and any number of Jesus quotations that boil down to doing Christianity, not simply affirming it.
Mark, writing the first narrative account of Jesus’ ministry, often shows Jesus acting out his teachings – for example, eating with toll or tax collectors and sinners (obvious sinners); and helping people even when he is exhausted. Those are suggestions for our life styles, aren’t they?
Luke has the Sermon on the Plain – his version of the Great Sermon that parallels Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount – with the collection of teachings on loving fellow human beings, including the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.
Now here in John we have today’s lesson saying so forcefully that those who do or keep Jesus’ words love him and are loved by God. And that those who do not do or keep Jesus’ words do not love him.
The non-canonical (non-biblical) Gospel of Thomas was written about 20 years before any of the canonical gospels were written. While Thomas often focuses on themes of secret knowledge of the gnostic movement, we read a number of things like chapter 45: 2Good persons produce good from what they’ve stored up; 3bad persons produce evil from the wickedness they’ve stored up in their hearts and say evil things. 4For from the overflow of the heart they produce evil.”
The hypothetical Sayings Gospel Q that, like Thomas, was written about year 50; it carried The Great Sermon and many other similar references from the oral tradition to Matthew and Luke.
A third document from about year 50, 20 years before the earliest canonical or biblical gospel, the Didache is a training manual for Greek cultured people, teaching them the Jewish-Christian way of life, is about doing over believing.
Especially as Emperor Constantine was making Christianity the State Church about year 325, the early Church was writing definitions of the faith and procedures for living faithfully. That is when the emphasis on believing the right things overshadowed doing the right things. Since forgiveness overcame doing wrong things and believing the right things about Jesus and God produced forgiveness, that faith format got set. It was well represented when some of the available books were chosen to be in the Bible and it is the theological position and stance of the Roman Catholic Church; it is the way that we were introduced to Christianity in our Sunday School classes.
Since this expression of Christianity seems to be failing to let our local churches thrive in our current (or modern) society, we apparently need to review our practices over against the biblical records – especially the parts that seem likely to go back to the Historical Jesus. That is, we need to focus on doing Christianity – on living Jesus’ way.
As Jesus’ teachings were brought down to us by oral tradition for at least 20 years and then as a mixture of oral and written remembrances, what we now have is very general instructions like “love God” and “love your neighbor.” And we have parables often without absolute rules for life but suggesting attitudes or ideas for good and faithful living. That is probably why the early Church rolled them into required beliefs and rules for faithful living. But since that framework is no longer working very well, what do you and I do now to follow Jesus’ way of life?
I propose that we listen very carefully to the short teachings, parables, and stories that have come down to us in the Bible as well as in some of the other early Christian writings that have recently been found. We learn about life in the First Century Palestine so we can put the biblical material into a meaningful context. Then we search out ways for us to interpret and apply those teachings, parables, and stories to our daily living. Even though I work at this task for each Sunday sermon, I don’t do enough. We all need to engage ourselves in studying, learning, interpreting, and finally applying Jesus’ way of life to our time and culture. We won’t do it the way Jesus did it because our world is nothing like Jesus’ world. But people today are like people in the First Century, so Jesus’ teachings are certainly relevant.
I personally spend a lot of time and energy on these tasks of studying, understanding, interpreting, and applying Jesus’ lifestyle to our community. But I can’t do it alone. We need your help – your participation and insights and commitments so that we can begin to live Jesus’ love and guidance to our Highland’s community.
It is my own sense, supported by comments of a number of class participants, that I am at my best in my work with small classes. So, you are not getting the best that I can offer if you don’t sign up for one or more classes each fall and spring.
Enough for the commercial.
The way we learned Christianity in Sunday School is not working for many – approaching most – people anymore. It does seem to work somewhat for you, but our job is to share Jesus’ life and teachings – to model Jesus’ way – to our neighbors. Ready or not, we need each of you to engage in this study, reflection, exploration, experimentation, and teaching life of faith.
Five or six of you have begun this study of life and faith. Will the rest of you or at least some of you join us in this ministry? Will you like the ancient prophet Isaiah say, “Here am I, send me”?
Yes, you can just sit in church every week. But as I have quipped before, sitting in Church makes you a Christian just like standing in the garage makes you an automobile. Sitting in church is not what we are called to do.
You are hearing my call to engage yourself in the ministry of Mt. Salem Church to show God’s love and forgiveness, peace and justice, to our neighbors so that they can experience Jesus’ way and begin to understand the gospel in the context of our life and times. I believe that that is God’s call to me which I am sharing with you.
So, today, let us say “Amen” – so be it so. And let us join into the study, reflection, exploration, experimentation, and teaching life of our congregation. Which is to say, let us seek the Lord and participate in the task that is before us.
Amen.
Sermons\Jn14_23-29.5d22