Following Jesus

An interesting article by Jon Swales.  Many of my posts echo ideas contained and stated far better by Jon in the article.  Rather than stating 'I follow Jesus' I prefer to state 'I follow the teaching ascribed to Jesus by the authors of the synoptic gospels'.

Jesus’ central mission revolved around preaching, proclaiming, embodying and enacting the Kingdom of God.

In a world marked by domination and injustice, he announced the imminent rule and reign of the Father.

This divine government, an alternative Empire, offered, among other things, a social, political and economic reordering—a great reversal in which those rejected and pushed to the margins would now have a place at the table.

Meanwhile, those who held the seats of power and hoarded wealth, acting as gatekeepers of the status quo, would be called to repentance and find their assumptions about privilege and power turned upside down.

We need to be reminded that Jesus, who said, ‘Blessed are you who are poor,’ also said, ‘Woe to you who are rich.’

The Kingdom focus, along with its accompanying social, economic and political theology and praxis, should therefore be central for those who have answered Jesus’ call to ‘Follow Me’.

Yet, in some Christian expressions, this vital aspect of Jesus’ ministry is diminished, relegated to a marginal note or gloss—treated as an inconsequential historical footnote that can be safely overlooked by contemporary expressions of Christian spirituality.

The results are neither surprising nor accidental.

We end up with a mutated expression of the Christian faith that bears little resemblance to Jesus and instead sits comfortably alongside consumerism, unrestrained capitalism and the hoarding of wealth.

Given this, and with a growing sense of urgency—for the unholy trinity of individualism, unrestrained capitalism and consumerism is helping propel us towards an increasingly unlivable future—we need to rearticulate the Christian faith in a way that reflects and realigns us with the Jesus of history and the Kingdom he proclaimed.

To follow Jesus is to organise our lives around the Kingdom he announced.

This means more than private spirituality, personal salvation or individual morality. It means allowing the reign of God to reshape how we understand wealth and poverty, power and privilege, community and belonging, creation and consumption, justice and the common good.

In other words, in response to Jesus, who proclaimed, ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand,’ we need to be those who hear his call:

Repent and believe.

— Swales, 2023

Abstract or concrete, or both.

 One could argue with conviction that the Christian faith and praxis has as its objective preparing individuals for admission to heaven.  Others would argue that the doctrine and dogma  accompanying this process is driving people away from faith.

There are those who argue, convincingly, that the teaching attributed to Jesus by the authors of the synoptic gospels points to the primary importance of helping individual at point of need and pursuing social justice to achieve heaven on earth.

And then there are those who pursue both: achieving admission to the heaven of God and heaven on earth.

It is against this background I invite you to read the following passage by Karl Popper: Conjectures and Refutations.

“Work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the realization of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing happiness by political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete miseries. Or, in more practical terms: fight for the elimination of poverty by direct means--for example, by making sure that everybody has a minimum income. Or fight against epidemics and disease by erecting hospitals and schools of medicine. Fight illiteracy as you fight criminality. But do all this by direct means. Choose what you consider the most urgent evil of the society in which you live, and try patiently to convince people that we can get rid of it.

But do not try to realize these aims indirectly by designing and working for a distant ideal of a society which is wholly good. However deeply you may feel indebted to its inspiring vision, do not think that you are obliged to work for its realization, or that it is your mission to open the eyes of others to its beauty. Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations, for the sake of an ideal of happiness that may never be realized. In brief, it is my thesis that human misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and that happiness is not such a problem. The attainment of happiness should be left to our private endeavours.

It is a fact, and not a very strange fact, that it is not so very difficult to reach agreement by discussion on what are the most intolerable evils of our society, and on what are the most urgent social reforms. Such an agreement can be reached much more easily than an agreement concerning some ideal form of social life. For the evils are with us her and now. They can be experienced, and are being experienced every day, by many people who have been and are being made miserable by poverty, unemployment, national oppression, war and disease. Those of us who do not suffer from these miseries meet every day others who can describe them to us. This is what makes evils concrete. This is why we can get somewhere in arguing about them; why we can profit here from the attitude of reasonableness. We can learn by listening to concrete claims, by patiently trying to assess them as impartially as we can, and by considering ways of meeting them without creating worse evils.

With ideal goods it is different. These we know only from our dreams and from the dreams of our poets and prophets. They cannot be discussed, only proclaimed from the housetops. They do not call for the rational attitude of the impartial judge, but for the emotional attitude of the impassioned preacher.

The Utopianist attitude, therefore, is opposed to the attitude of reasonableness. Utopianism, even though it may often appear in a rationalist disguise, cannot be more than a pseudo-rationalism."

Karl Popper, 'Conjectures and Refutations' (page 361-362 in the original edition; page 485-486 in the new edition).

In the 1990s I read Theology of Hope (1964) by Jurgen Moltmann. It was a major influence on my thinking as at the time I was studying for a diploma in theology.

His obituary published in The Daily Telegraph on10th June 2024 had this to say:

"Jurgen Moltmann was the most significant Protestant theologian of the 20th century.  

"The basis of Moltmann's work was his conviction that true theology must always be related to concrete human situations and that the teaching of Jesus about the Kingdom of God requires of his followers commitment to the overthrowing of everything in the social order that is contrary to its demands. This led him to personal involvement in peace and other demonstrations.....and close association with the Liberation Theology movement in Latin America, where his work was specially valued by Catholic theologians.

"The message was of a God whose coming in the world lay not in some distant future but was a present reality, thus offering both hope and challenge."

The news of Martin Luther King Jnr's assassination propelled Moltmann into an interest in black theology and becoming a strong supporter of the USA civil rights movement. Moltmann's wife, Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendell was a prominent supporter of feminist theology.  

Of, for and with communities.

 What is a community?  Simple question but complex answers. The basic definition is people sharing a common interest or within a geographic area. Thus an individual who enjoys jazz shares a common interest with other jazz lovers  even if they do not know anyone else with the same interest.  Individuals living on housing estates, or within the boundaries of a church or secular parish may be described as being part of communities of geography. 

An individual  may be a member of several communities of interest: work, leisure activities, hobbies, race, sexuality, economic. A geographic community will not be homogenous but very diverse.  Take for example an housing estate comprising properties formerly rented out by a local authority.  There will be individuals who rent from an housing association, owner-occupiers and owners who rent on the private market.  There will be old people, young people, those in employment, unemployed, sofa surfers, those with addictions, a multi-racial estate etc.  All with different interests, hopes  and concerns.

So, when people speak of community engagement what does that mean, particularly in a church context?  Is it a 'one size fits all' approach or is the plan to target specific groups?  Does a church attempt a go it alone approach or seek to collaborate with other faith organisations, secular charities, businesses or the statutory sector?

More importantly, what is the motivation or purpose behind churches  becoming involved with community engagement? It is a long-held opinion of mine that the belief system as encapsulated in the Nicene Creed is far removed from the teaching of Jesus with its emphasis on loving your neighbour, kindness, helping, justice and sense of community.   

 Carl Krieg suggests the following:

“Change the message, returning it to what Jesus actually taught and did. That change is basic, and it conforms to what people need and want to hear because everyone understands love. The current images of what the church represents- sacrifice on a cross, walking on water, even hell- must be replaced by images of love and community, images that represent who God is and who we are. A non-dogmatic approach is mandatory and would open the doors to people who come from different backgrounds and are at differing stages of life and faith formation. There must be no room for a fundamentalist attitude of “here it is, take it or leave it”. It is that attitude, masquerading as faith, that made the pews empty in the first place. The purpose of the church is not to convert, not to get people to join. The purpose of the congregation is to continually grow in awareness and fellowship within itself, while also providing for society at large a welcoming place where spirituality, love, and justice are practiced. Should those efforts prove successful, growth will come naturally.”

Do you, or your church, engage in social action, action in the world outside your church as a means to an end, namely to evangelise?  Or does it engage on the basis that it is the teaching attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels to get alongside and support the poor, the needy, the outcast, the marginalised in their hour of need and also to seek justice?

Going into communities is to leave the comfort zone of  the church and enter a world that has a range of values, expectations, worries and concerns.  How to relate?  Certainly not by pushing a gospel message.  Motivated by the core principle of love your neighbour it is essential to display care, concern, compassion, connection, consideration, but as equals, not by being patronising of paternalistic.  The key is to get alongside individuals, to show by words and actions that you are there for them and an integral part of the community.  No 'us' and 'them'.   You are with them and they are with you.  Seek to dismantle barriers.  By a process of osmosis the particular community(ies) you are connected with will imperceptibly come to understand and share your message of love.  

Unlike mixed ecology it is not about numerical increase in  church attendance.  It is about showing the love of Jesus to a disbelieving world, to show the church is not an inward looking private club but a body for, of and with those it serves.