What Jesus Began, We Should Continue
(John 13:34; Acts 1:1, Acts 2:1-21)
Who would you say was the greatest, most influential
Christian of the twentieth century? Who was the Christian
example that Jesus would most likely identify with?
My pick would be Mother Teresa of India.
Mother Teresa wasn’t a great media preacher/celebrity, but
she was more Christ-like than anyone I know anything about.
She was a servant to the poorest of the poor. She continued what
Jesus began to do and teach.
The author of the gospel according to Luke, having told his
version of Jesus’ story, turned out a sequel, the book of Acts, the
story of Jesus’ first followers. Their life together was described
by the author of Luke/Acts this way: all that Jesus began to do
and teach, they continued. Christians were all about the
imitation of Christ, always asking: What would Jesus do (or
What would Jesus have me do)?
The question for us is: Are we doing what Jesus began to
do? Is there continuity between my life, or my church’s
activities, and what Jesus was all about? Are there
disconnects, and if so, why?
Let’s be honest: Jesus was counter-cultural, revolutionary,
and compellingly marvelous. With whom did he eat? Where did
he go? Why did they kill him? Jesus touched the untouchables.
2
Jesus befriended the despised and the wretched. Jesus lifted
women from male-ownership status to equality. Jesus spoke
intimately and regularly with God. Jesus offended the mighty—
the religious mighty and the political mighty. Jesus even equated
himself with God, which got him killed. The religious mighty
called the equating blasphemous. The Roman authorities were
nervous about it too, because Caesar thought of himself as a
god. Jesus? Caesar? Will the real god please stand up?
We can’t have word of this Jesus claiming to be God
getting back to Caesar. Caesar will make things uncomfortable
for us. Well, let’s kill this one—this Jesus who equates himself
with God. Then we’ll know who the ‘real’ god is, because a god
can’t be killed.
Jesus afflicted the comfortable and comforted the afflicted.
Jesus felt immense compassion for the poor and hungry. And
Jesus did more than just feel for them, he fed and clothed them.
Jesus healed the sick. Jesus never played it safe. Jesus waved off
every social barrier. Jesus read the scriptures never as once upon
a time fossils in a museum, but declared: Today the scripture is
fulfilled (Luke 4:21).
To continue what Jesus began—to be like Jesus—we need
to do what a sign I saw not long ago in front of a United
Methodist Church read: Be an organ donor. Give your heart to
Jesus. We also need new brains. We need, too, a soul transplant,
and that mysterious power beyond our conceiving—
revelation—reveled to us, deep in our beings by the Holy Spirit,
that the only cause that matters is the cause of Christ. It’s all
3
about Jesus. It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s all about
Jesus.
We need each other. The Church is the body of Christ in
the world—Jesus in the world. I can’t be Jesus by myself. You
can’t be Jesus by yourself. I need you. You need me. We need
each other. Paul rather wonderfully told Jesus’ first followers:
You are the body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:27).
No me and my pal Jesus (spirituality-speaking) in ancient
times—no Lone Ranger Christians (if you are under the age of
50 and wonder who the Lone Ranger was, ask your parents)—
there’s no, I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. I can
stay home on Sundays and watch Charles Stanley or benny Hinn
on television!
Wrong!
You were saved to be part of a body—the body of Christ in
the world. Instead of going home alone, the first Christians
banded together and hit the road to be Jesus, to guarantee (even
if in wobbly, imperfect ways) that Jesus’ marvelous revolution
continued—that the untouchables were touched, loved and cared
for—that God was known—that an alternative to life as
everybody else knew it, was embodied—that compassion
became instinct—that the scriptures were fulfilled today and
every day.
Jesus said: Love one another, as I have loved you. By this,
all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another
(John 13:34)
4
Do you know the complaint the pagan emperor Julian had
against the Christians? He complained: The impious (meaning
the Christians who refused to worship him—the emperor)
supported not only their own poor, but ours as well. Everyone
can see that people get no aid from us.
The early church theologian Tertullian explained why
Christianity was growing. He said: It is the care of the
helpless, and the practice of loving-kindness that brand us.
‘Look,’ they say, ‘see how they love.’
The need was immense. Cities were crammed with as many
as 200 inhabitants an acre! Sanitation was atrocious, with stench
and disease everywhere. Life expectancy was less than 30 years.
There was no public security. War could engulf a city
unexpectedly. Earthquakes and meteorological disasters struck
without warning. People were desperate for help, in dire need of
community, anxious every day about death and what was on the
other side.
In such a danger-riddled world (a world not unlike our
own), Christians exhibited a shocking determination to pay close
attention, not to the most highly positioned people in the social
order, but to the most lowly, the despised, those nobody else
wanted. Historian Peter Brown argues that the Christians
invented the poor—in the sense that no one spoke of them
before Jesus, no one advocated for, or tried to help them before
Jesus, and certainly, no one suggested that they were of any
positive significance. But in this Jesus movement, the poor were
protected, and included. They were regarded as the living image
of Jesus, who himself was poor and despised.
5
Christians had brilliant theological ideas that they set into
motion to continue what Jesus began. The Holy Spirit moved
swiftly and powerfully. What spectators noticed, though, was
the barrier-shattering love. Paul put it this way: There is no
longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are
all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
That barrier-shattering love began with a cross, and the
Son of God dying there for the sins of the world, even my
sins and yours. What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my
soul…?
Let us pray.
Lord, we want our love to be as remarkable as that of your first
followers. Give us the vision to see you in the poor, and to trust that our
care for the poor and marginalized will impress those who believe
Christianity is nothing but hypocrisy, and make believers out of them.
Amen.
Charles Lee Hutchens, D.Min.
Main Street United Methodist Church, Reidsville, N.C.
July, 23, 2006
I preached this sermon again at the Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Climax, NC on
Pentecost Sunday, 2015.