THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

January 4, 2014

Westmount Park United Church

In the early years of the Christian Church there was a great debate between the missionary apostle Paul and the leaders of the Jerusalem church, who were Peter and Jesus’ brother James. It was a hard fought debate but in the end the position which Paul pressed for was accepted. The question those first Christians debated so strenuously was this: Are we, as followers of Jesus, a reform movement within Israel, and thus our purpose is to convince all our fellow Jews that Jesus was and is the Messiah, or do we have a wider mission that includes the Gentiles as well? What they were debating was the relationship of Jesus to the rest of the world. Those very first Christians, who were all Jewish compatriots of Jesus, were considering various possibilities about what their mission should be. They could just concern themselves with their own people, or they could attempt to convert Gentiles to Judaism, or there might be yet another option which would release the Church and its mission from being bound to the religion of Israel and make it more accessible to all the peoples of the world, Jews and Gentiles alike. As we know it was that last option which finally won out. It was by no means clear at the start to the first disciples of Jesus, but they soon became convinced, and indeed strongly convicted, that theirs was a world wide mission, and this conviction is what permeates all the writings of the New Testament. Jesus is not just the Messiah of Israel, he is the Saviour of the whole world, therefore the mission of his followers is to all peoples in all nations.

Paul spells it out explicitly in today’s epistle reading. “By means of the gospel the Gentiles have a part with the Jews in God’s blessings; they are members of the same body and share in the promise that God made through Christ Jesus.” [Ephesians 3:6] Jesus is the Christ or Messiah, not just for his own people but for all people. Because of Jesus the whole world can enter into the same sort of covenant relationship with God as did the Jewish people. Paul was the leading proponent in the early Church of opening up their fellowship to include Gentiles as well as Jews, so his writings reflect his belief that Jesus is for all. Likewise the rest of the New Testament was written after the debate was over, so Matthew, when he is setting forth his account of the birth of Jesus, emphasizes the fact that Jesus is born into this world for the sake of all the nations, thus he describes sages from foreign lands coming to worship the new born king.

In the calendar of the Church year January sixth is the Feast of Epiphany. The word “epiphany” means “revelation” and the Feast of Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles. That’s why the gospel reading for Epiphany is the story of wise men who come from foreign lands to worship Jesus, the new born king of the Jews who is also their king as well, because he has been born for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. We are able to celebrate the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles on Epiphany because the bold step was taken by Jesus’ first followers to throw open the doors of the Church and welcome Gentiles into their midst as full heirs of God’s promises, as brothers and sisters who are all children of God. We Gentile Christians are the winners in the debate that gripped the early Church and which ended in our favour. We take it for granted now that the Christian Church is a world wide religion, embracing people of all different races and cultures, but it didn’t just happen automatically. The leaders of the church in Jerusalem understood their own religion, their own way of life. They were accustomed to rituals and practices that they had learned from their childhood. They were Jews, Jesus was a Jew, and all through Jesus’ lifetime they had almost never strayed from living and dealing with their own people. It was not an easy thing for those first Christians to abandon the beliefs and practices they had followed all their lives in order to allow God’s saving work in Jesus to reach out to the rest of the world. They were not at first able to see the way clear to breaking down the barriers which prevented the full participation of non Jews in the life and work of the Church. They tried to keep Jesus boxed in to the old familiar ways they understood. But the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus had promised would come to them, pressed them onward and outward.

Paul says in our epistle reading that God’s intentions have been kept secret in part, down through the ages, and that the Spirit of God, moving within the Church that has been born in the wake of Jesus’ resurrection, is now disclosing the mysteries of God’s fuller intention for the Church to reach out to all peoples of all races. Thus the Spirit pressed the early Church to break down the barriers between Gentiles and Jews. Because the very first Christians were willing to step out beyond the old and familiar, because they were willing, as the saying goes, to think outside the box, those who were not Jews by birth, became inheritors of the gospel.

In a world of rapid change and uncertainty we look to religion to be a source of stability, a bulwark against the pressures of change, a place of familiarity that is unassailed by innovation and disruption. That’s why we also have a way of trying to box Jesus in to the things that are old and familiar. We want a Jesus who is clothed in tradition and always predictable and reliable. But a love of tradition and reliable routine can keep people out of the Church, or prevent the gospel from touching those who don’t fit into the molds that we have cast around the Christian faith. What enabled the gospel to explode into the Mediterranean world was the willingness of the first generation of Christians to let Jesus out of the box they had built around him, the box of their own familiar Jewish religion, that would have kept him distant and inaccessible to the rest of the world.

It wasn’t easy for those first Christians to break down the barriers of religious custom and tradition that were preventing non Jews from entering into their fellowship. It was hard for them to realize that the particular cultural and religious practices which they followed were not integral or essential to the gospel itself. Unfortunately the Church did not learn that lesson once and for all. Throughout its history it has continued to propagate particular cultural and religious practices in the name of Christian mission. Each new generation of Christians has a tendency to keep Jesus inside the boxes of its own particular traditions. It is a difficult lesson that needs relearning in each generation that the cultural and religious practices of any one time or place are not the same thing as the gospel itself.

When the Church began the Spirit led it in ways that broke down barriers and released the gospel of Jesus Christ from the box of cultural and religious traditions which his first disciples wanted to build around him. For the gospel to move forward at the very beginning the first Christians had to be open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and let Jesus out of the box. For the gospel to move forward today we will also have to be open to the Spirit of God moving in our times so that we can let Jesus out of the box.