PREACHING ABOUT POVERTY:
Christianity. . . According to Jesus

by Gordon McClellan, Founder, ChristianNetworks.org of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
McClellan received his BA from Haverford College, MDiv from Yale Divinity School and will complete his DMin from Wesley Theological Seminary in 2002. At Yale, he won the Walcott Calkins Prize, awarded for "excellence in clear and vigorous preaching"; and was named a Higgins Scholar for the 1995-77 academic years.  He is  author of a recent e-book entitled Reflections of a Young Preacher, and his weekly column is syndicated on Crosswalk.com.

As a minister, I hear many definitions of what it “means to be Christian”. Often, the definitions are varied and based on particular needs or interests that one person or group of people have. I began to wonder if there can be deciphered within the many competing definitions of what it “means to be a Christian”, an understanding of Christianity according to Jesus? So I asked myself this simple question: What did Christ teach about being Christian?

Love. It is this simple. Christ taught us about the need to love all people. There is to be no distinguishing in our love for humanity, Jesus taught. We are called to love those who we are most like and those who are most unlike us; those we agree with and those we disagree with; we are called to love the rich and the poor, especially those in desperate need.

Furthermore, and perhaps most important, love is not to be conditional. Jesus did not condone adultery, for example, and there are many verses in the Bible denouncing adultery. But nonetheless, Jesus accepted the woman who had committed adultery and He commanded us to do the same. “Who will be the first to throw a stone”, Jesus asked to those crowded around the trembling woman? For sure, Jesus told her to “go and sin no more”, but he did not judge her. Jesus is clear throughout all of his teachings that it is only God the Father’s prerogative to judge others. So Jesus did not judge this woman. He accepted her in love, led her to a reading and following of the Scriptures, and cast no stone. And today, we who are members of churches, we who are confessing Christians, we must be firm in our commitment to not abandon Christ’s Christianity.

Of central importance to this process is reading Scripture. In so doing, we maintain our connection to Christ and what Christ has told us being a Christian means. We succeed in looking at the world through what John Calvin called the lens of Scripture. And we each must understand that such a metaphor was very meaningful to Calvin and others of his day…for glasses were very rare in Calvin’s day and most people with vision problems walked around without being able to see the world properly. And today, though glasses are much more abundant, there is still a problem with seeing the world and its people properly.

Christ, as God’s Son, was able to and has - using Calvin’s language - provided us with a lens through which to see and perceive not only the wonders of the created world around us but, even more importantly, one another. Scripture is not a tool by which to exclude, but a vehicle by which to be freed. It is a vehicle by which to grow closer to God, God’s ways, and God’s people.

If you subscribe to the notion that we were each created in God’s image, then by faith and reading of the Scriptures we complete, we round out that image. In faith we become, in Calvin’s words, “reformed to God’s image”. This is why we read the Bible. This is why we pray. To bring ourselves back as close as possible to that Divine image in which we each were created. This is why one committed Christian infects a whole group, because that person exudes God’s unyielding love for and acceptance of all people, that person makes it uncomfortable for people to discard or put down others, that person reminds others of the love that God has bestowed upon all of creation.

So by our continued faith we proclaim to all we meet that Christianity and the church are not about restricting, they are not about imposing upon all people one certain set of dogmas, they are not about focusing on procedure and protocol while ignoring the needs of our most desperate neighbors...no! Coming to church and having faith in Christ is an expression of the greatest freedom known to humankind. To come together in all our differences, not to throw stones, not to judge, but to worship and grow closer to the image of the one from which we were all molded.

This is Christianity. . . according to Jesus.

_________________________________________

Close this window to return to the Poverty Update for September 2002