One task to which Jesus is calling us as Christians is to
build up our churches. Right now, our churches are generally nothing more than
a loose association of individuals who gather together on Sundays for an hour
of pleasantries before leaving and forgetting about everyone else for another
week. These companions of our community are not relatives, friends, neighbors,
or colleagues. In effect, they’re nobodies.
In rich contrast to this, Jesus calls each church to be
nothing less than his alternative society and culture. He wants us to be the provisional
representatives of the Kingdom of Heaven right now already on Earth. Do people
want a taste of life in the age to come? Do they want some assurance there even
is an age to come? Do they want to experience what freedom, truth, love, and
vitality are really like? Do we? Then let us respond with gratitude to the gracious
call of Jesus to live together as witnesses to him.
One way we witness to our freedom in Jesus for sharing
his truth, love, and vitality is by taking care of our own. Luke gives us some
idea of what this means:
44 And
all those who had believed were together and had all things in
common; 45 and they began selling their
property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have
need. 46 Day by day continuing with one mind
in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were
taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And
the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were
being saved (Acts 2:44-47, New American Standard Version, here and following).
32 And the congregation
of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed
that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common
property to them. 33 And with great
power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. 34 For
there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or
houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales 35 and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would
be distributed to each as any had need (Acts 4:32-35).
From these two passages, we learn that the earliest
Christians were not simply a loose association but a meaningful community. They
shared their wealth with one another, ate meals together, praised God, enjoyed
unity of mind and heart, and witnessed to the resurrection of Jesus.
Churches as meaningfully alternative communities, taking
care of their own, practicing mutual aid, continued for centuries. Julian
(331-363), a Roman emperor (361-363) seeking to revive a declining Olympianity
against these increasingly robust churches, wrote with some frustration to an
Olympian bishop:
Are we refusing to face the
fact that Atheism [Christianity!] owes its success above all to its
philanthropy towards strangers and to its provisions for funerals and to its
parade of a high puritanical morality?…It is a disgrace to us that our own
people should be notoriously going short of assistance from us when in the
Jewish community there is not a single beggar, while the impious Galileans
[Christians] are supporting not only their own poor but ours as well (quoted in
An Historian’s Approach to Religion [1956]
by Arnold Toynbee, 100).
Julian sincerely believed in the six conventional but
false and destructive gods of Olympianity: (1) Jupiter, god of politics; (2)
Mars, god of war; (3) Vulcan, god of technology; (4) Venus, goddess of sex; (5)
Pluto, god of money; and (6) Bacchus, god of consumption. He referred to
Christians as atheists because, in
his day, it was still plain that they witnessed to Jesus as a different god and
declared that Julian’s gods were no gods at all. Worse, their point of view was
increasing in popularity despite the state’s persecution of them. Demonstrated Christian love simply disgraced routine Olympian indifference.
We can’t say the same today. Today we Christians may have
the name of Jesus on our lips but our hearts are far from him. We’ve ended up
worshiping the same Olympian gods as Julian—called Julian the Apostate by the
Christians of his day because he had been raised a Christian by his parents. We’ve
joined him in apostasy by abandoning Jesus for his gods. He would be so pleased. We witness to
this by our Olympian indifference toward other members of our congregation. Now
our own, like Julian's, are notoriously going short of
assistance.
Miraculously, Jesus is calling us to better days. Once
again, solely by grace, he is inviting us to repent of our devotion to Julian’s
false gods and to return at last to him. With him, he is enabling us to take
care of our own once again. He is enabling us to see him as our head and our
companions in church as members with us of his body—for our good and his glory.
Copyright © 2018
by Steven Farsaci.
All rights reserved. Fair use encouraged.
All rights reserved. Fair use encouraged.