Across the Pastor’s Desk by Todd Walsh

 

Sunday is the Day of Pentecost. It is the day Christians celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead. The scene is recorded in Acts 2 and it is a dramatic event. There is a great assemblage. Then there is a mighty wind. There are flames. There are the languages of a world about to hear the message of Jesus. And, of course, with every momentous occasion someone stands up to say a few words. Peter as the leader of the disciples stands up to speak and gives a rousing address to those gathered.

Peter begins his sermon with a solid base. He quotes the Bible, the prophet Joel, and he chooses to end that quote with words that would change the world and the lives of untold numbers across the ages. 

“Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Peter has named one of the engines of the Christian religion. This new religion is for anyone who claims it. Peter speaks in a world where barriers hinder based on nation, race, class, wealth, religion or anything that will give someone one up on another, often at the expense of another. And futility, suffering or death met anyone trying to breach one of those barriers.

Eleven Galilean peasants are finishing the transformation Jesus began when he called them disciples. Those 11 became apostles who would transform the world with the message of their risen Lord. The apostles lived in to a world where virtually everyone was a slave to someone. Now those apostles introduced the world to a new life and new identity: child of God.

The first followers of Jesus did not call themselves Christians. They chose or perhaps they were given another name that spoke to what they were about. The name appears in Acts about half a dozen times. They called themselves “the way.” The name spoke well to the belief that followers of Jesus chose to live by a new way given to them by their Lord. No one is really sure if that first name originated with the first followers of Jesus or their opponents. What is sure is they adopted the name. It did not take long, though, before the followers of Jesus began to use the name that stuck and attached them to their Lord:  Christian.

Both “the way” and “Christian” point to the nature of Christian community. Followers of Jesus have been given a new life and that life is to be lived and shared. It is not something that you simply do, but it is who you are and how you live — a way of life. To be a Christian is to believe that the one named Jesus is sent from heaven to bring life from death for each day.

It is peculiar that the chief word to describe a follower of Jesus — Christian — appears only twice in the New Testament. There is another word that dwarfs it — church. It is used 115 times in the New Testament to describe the followers of Jesus.

So what does the word mean?

First of all, church does not refer to a building, with one exception.  There is one pivotal account in the New Testament that calls the church a building. It’s the scene where Jesus calls Peter “the rock on which I will build my church.” It is so pivotal, the passage rings the rotunda of St. Peter’s in Rome as a remarkable testament to faith in Jesus.

But all the rest name the church as Christians. The church is the people. There are several references in the New Testament to “the church in your house” or someone’s house. But notice the phrase points to the people inside a house, not to the house itself.

The word church literally means “those who are called out.” Called out for what? Called out to gather for worship? That is part of the meaning. But there is also a broader meaning with a deep spirituality that speaks to attitude and lifestyle. Christians are called to share the message of Jesus in word and action as examples to others. We can certainly call our faith personal. That is good. Each Christian has a life experience and an encounter with God that is individual. But to call our faith private, we can miss a life of opportunity to grow and be nurtured and to share the gifts God has given us as individuals.

Allow me to close with one more remarkable picture of Christian community. It comes from Galatians 3.26-28. 

“For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Notice the new identity language — children of God. There is also the lifestyle language — clothe yourselves with Christ. And then we are given a further exposition on the theme of Peter’s first sermon — all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

May you this day be filled with the new life and drawn to a community that nurtures and shares that life.

Todd Walsh is chaplain at Thorne Crest Senior Living Community in Albert Lea.