Our quest for re-imagining church is gaining momentum, while some churches in the UK have opened for private prayers, while some are preparing towards opening their doors and while some are discussing about public worship following the government guidelines. Are we to do the same things that we have always done prior to lockdown or is this an opportune time to do things differently as churches so that we are relevant to our time and space? Is there any hope for a gracious revival of church today? By gracious revival I mean not about a numerical growth in the church, but a re-vitalisation of the celebration of Christian presence in our community. The prescribed text from our lectionary for this week speaks about a gracious reversal of things that Jesus offers, in a way inviting us to risk Christ for Christ’s sake, shifting the gear from how things have always been to something new, startling and radical. In this process, Christ whom we know traditionally will have to be risked for the sake of Christ who collaborates with us, for in a changing world, “what is Jesus doing today” takes precedence to “what did Jesus do” or “what would Jesus do.” These gracious reversals that Jesus offers serves as signposts in our reimagining churches today. Allow me to share three of those gracious reversals from this text:
1. A gracious reversal of identity (18-19v)
When John the baptiser came neither eating nor drinking, but preaching a prophetic message of repentance in his public sphere, many mistook him for a messiah, which he graciously denied, saying that he has come to prepare a way for the messiah. Jesus in 14v, affirmed that John was Elijah, who is to come. However, Jesus later responded the public talk about John as they were saying “he has a demon” (18v). When John stood to be prophetic in his faith, when he humbled himself by preparing a way to Jesus the messiah, the public sphere framed and branded him to have a demon. This was a common feature of the religious authorities to brand dissidents as ‘demonic,’ in order to discredit them amongst the populations. I think such a branding came up because he was on the mission of casting off the political demons in his context. John’s proclamation of repentance was branded anti-God, because he was exposing the demons among the religious and political authorities, which he did courageously.
On another note Jesus explains the branding of Jesus’ own identity when he as Son of Man came eating and drinking in his own public sphere, they said, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (19v). By uttering these words about his identity in the public sphere, Jesus was unashamedly affirming that among those people and sites who have been (mis)branded as ‘sinners,’ as ‘excluded,’ as ‘outcasted,’ and as ‘unrighteous’ according to the standards of temple and empire, that he identifies with and his presence dwells among them. Jesus subversively reverses his identity from being a rabbi, a teacher, a leader, Son of God, Son of David, Lord, Messiah, Son of Man to be called as glutton, drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. In that subversion of all the great Christological titles that Jesus was known and ascribed as, there is a gracious risk in him being recognised as a glutton, drunkard and as a friend of tax collectors and sinners. The gracious risk was in his identifying with those people who are considered ‘outcasts’, for he has come for such people on the margins. The graciousness is further revealed, when Jesus said, “yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds,” (19b v), by which Jesus was ascertaining his friendships with the ‘excluded’ and ‘outcasted’ as a conscious choice which he demonstrated in his actions for and with them.
Risking Christ for Christ’s sake is an interesting book written by an Indian theologian MM Thomas in the context of religious pluralism. Thomas explains that, Christians “risk Christ for Christ’s sake” by allowing their faith to be interpreted in the categories of ‘others.’ When Jesus graciously reverses his identity and rebrands himself as a ‘friend of tax collectors and sinners,’, he is inviting us to risk the conventional identities of Jesus, church and mission to more subversive identities for the sake of Christ today, because in such subversion there is graciousness and relevance of our Christian faith. Are we bold as a church to be branded and called ‘Look at this church, friends of ‘misfits’ and the excluded?’ Jesus did not attribute morality and judge these people, rather demonstrated love of God to these people who are (mis)branded by the society as ‘misfits,’ by being with them and allowing to work with them. This text is inviting us as church and as disciples to take on a gracious reversal of identity, by allowing ourselves to befriend ‘misfits,’ with and be branded as friends of the ‘misfits.’ Such a rebranding is our public witness today, for we need to vindicate our solidarity in actions and in building communities of love and hope.
2. A gracious reversal of agency (25-26v)
Jesus did give thanks to God on occasions like blessing the bread before serving to 5000 people, when Lazarus came back to life, at the Passover meal with his disciples, and oddly he gives thanks to God for hiding his revelations from the wise and revealing them to the children (25-26v). ‘Knowledge is power’ has been one of the colonial ideologies on which the empires were driven, for they have always kept knowledge with the powerful as they constructed knowledge making it ‘power is knowledge.’ Jesus in rebranding his identity and mission, graciously reverses the agency of knowledge, the agency of interpretation, the agency of discernment from the so called ‘wise’ and ‘intelligent’ to infants, for which he thanks God of the heaven and the earth. This reversal of agency is a matter of praising God for Jesus, in which we recognise graciousness. Has such a reversal ever been a part of our praise and thanksgiving? In this reversal Jesus celebrates the knowledge and discernment of the infants, who are considered powerless in contrast to the adult powerful, and upholds that ‘in powerlessness there is knowledge,’ ‘powerlessness is not weakness and never is it foolishness.’ Jesus was exposing the arrogance of the so called ‘wise’ and ‘intelligent’ by allowing God’s revelations to come through the powerless people.
In our reimagining church today, we are called to reimagine worship, for what constitutes our praise and worship? We are called to join with Jesus in praising God for the new revelations that are erupting from the infants and the powerless people in our community, which might be risky on the one hand and be totally different from what we have always known as praise and worship on the other hand. Our context also invites us to reimagine the hermeneutics (interpretative tools) we apply in our churches, for who interprets the texts for us? Only when there is a gracious reversal of agency happening in our churches, a willingness to take the risk, where the powerful give up and stand down to listen to the revelations of the infants, the children, the women, the disabled, and several from others in the margins, only then will we as churches be relevant. The revelations of the powerless communities will come as a surprise for they may come in song, in dance, in drawing, in music, in poetry and in creative messiness, which will be radically different from what we have always heard and done in our churches. Are we ready for such a radical risky reversal of agency in our churches today? In such gracious risks, new creation in Christ flows and evolves.
3. A gracious reversal of liability (28-30v):
These words of Jesus, “come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (28v) is an invitation to all people in the public sphere, irrespective of their identity. Jesus offers rest by giving his yoke which is easy and light, by taking restlessness of people on him. Jesus through this invitation was reversing the heavy liability that people carry with his own easy and light yoke by offering rest. The graciousness of this reversal is found in following Jesus who is humble and gentle and find rest in him. A yoke is a farming instrument, where two oxen are joined so that they share the burden equally and work in partnership with one another. Jesus in reversing this liability was offering himself to be in partnership with people who are carrying heavy burdens so that he shares in their heavy burdens and thereby offers some solace and rest in him. The liability is no longer carried by one person, but is carried together in companionship with Jesus who gives his easy and light yoke to the people, coming and taking his invitation of walking and working with him.
In the context of post-lock down, walking and working in partnership with Jesus by carrying and sharing the yoke together with him is a way forward for us. Jesus is willing to be a partner to us; the big question is: are we willing to be his partners in the work of God? In learning to be like Jesus, we as a church are called to walk and work with people in our community who are weary and carrying their burdens of loneliness, hunger, poverty, anxiety, so that we as a church become a space of offering hope and rest in this restless world. As church offering ourselves to be a partner to carry and share the burdens of weary people around us is a challenge in our reimagining as a relevant church for today.
With a gracious reversal of identity, agency and liability, our churches become new spaces, where we celebrate Christian presence in our communities unashamedly. On that note, I want to conclude my reflection with three distinct fellowships in Christ that Thomas recognises in his Risking Christ for Christ’s sake, which I think are relevant for us today. There is no hierarchy among these fellowships, and come as three different understandings of fellowships. Firstly, the koinonia (fellowship or communion) of those who acknowledge “the person of Jesus”; secondly, a fellowship of faiths that acknowledge “the pattern of suffering servant hood” exemplified in Jesus; and thirdly, a still larger fellowship of ideologies whose struggle for community is “informed by the agape of the cross.” In our reimagining church post-lockdown, we as church form to be one or more of these kinds of fellowships, complimenting with one another, so that we can offer public witness to the love of Christ to all the people in our community.
May the spirit of Jesus Christ be with each of us so that we are called to risk, to graciously reverse our identity, agency and liability and offer rest and hope to communities living in restlessness and hopelessness. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta
2nd July 2020
Pic credit: Sieger Koder (2015)
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