Hey, Cobblestone,
Authenticity is valued, like gold, precisely for its rarity.
If gold were lying about like so much quartz or granite, married people
wouldn’t be so excited about putting bands of it around their left ring
fingers. Likewise, examples of the genuine article in any desirable category
will take some looking to find.
By sheer use of the word “community” in conversation, it
appears nearly everybody is looking for it. By sheer number of us still
looking, it appears not many are finding. Or maybe many are finding, but the
community we find lacks the essential ingredients, and there’s little satisfaction
in being a member. A fairly accurate representation of a Big Mac can be had for
a relatively small investment, but the Big Mac community isn’t one most folks
would want to pledge their heart and soul to. And yet, “community” gets tossed
about as if it can be had with a click, tap, or swipe.
Where does authenticity play into the idea of community? I
would say it’s an essential ingredient. If members of a given community can
fool most of each other most of the time, I would say true community does not
exist among them. If pretending is easy, it’s not community.
I was put in charge of a bachelor party some years back. My
only qualification for the job was the bride’s notion that the groom stood the
best chance of staying out of serious trouble if I was running the show. Not
saying her notion was correct, but because I love the bride very much, I took
the assignment. We went to an arcade. They booted us out at 11pm. What? No, we
didn’t get into trouble; one of our party was under 21, and 11pm started
alcohol-serving time. In an arcade. I didn’t ask why. Out of the frying pan, we
jumped into a large mall with three themed clubs under one roof. Standing in
the corridor, all three clubs were line-of-sight.
To the left was a surfer club. People were dressed for the
beach – with no beach within several hundred miles. Legitimacy was based on the
best imitation of Frankie Avalon and/or Annette Funicello. Surfboards were
screwed to the walls because nobody was actually surfing. To the right was a
honky-tonk. People were dressed for a cattle drive – in Cincinnati. Legitimacy
was based on who wore the biggest belt buckle, or maybe who could stay on the
mechanical bull the longest. Harness and tack adorned the walls. No horses, but
lots of harness and tack. And straight ahead – honestly, I don’t know what the
clubbers were doing, but it looked painful. People were dressed for the zombie
apocalypse, though I couldn’t have said which side they’d have been on.
Legitimacy was based on… um, your guess is as good as mine. The walls, best I
could tell, were for banging one’s head into.
Though there were a couple close calls, we managed to spend thirty
minutes or so in the honky-tonk without getting into a fight. (The winner of
the bull session, by the way, was a shirtless drunk dude; the loser was a gal
who probably needed medical attention but didn’t ask for it.) The lasting
impression was how artificial the whole arrangement was. I’m guessing nobody
went to work Monday morning in Friday night costume and character.
If pretending to be a disciple of Jesus is as easy as
pretending to be a surfer or cowboy or head-banger, maybe it’s not the genuine
article we’re trying to imitate.
In the opening verse of 1Corinthians 11, Paul says, Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. In
reading the whole letter, you’ll notice that he had spent most of the first ten
chapters allowing his authenticity to be tested:
For Christ did not send
me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent
wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power (1Corinthians 1:17).
And I, when I came to
you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of
God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you
except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with
you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my
message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the
Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in
the power of God (2:1-5).
As we bring the idea of community into sharper focus, and
work toward an accurate definition, please know this: the community of Christian
faith, in all its local manifestations, has a commodity that the world
desperately needs: the peace of Christ.
“Peace I leave with
you,” (Jesus
said), “my peace I give to you. Not
as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).
There is a peace that is infinitely more than the absence of
conflict, immeasurably better than getting our way. On Jesus’s promise, there
is a peace that is capable of keeping our hearts from being troubled or afraid,
and he gives it. The church’s job is threefold as it relates to the peace Jesus
gives: receive it, act on it, and invite into it others who don’t have it yet.
Authenticity is the best way to make the invitation.
Jesus peace isn’t shaken by news cycles, the stock market,
changing social norms, or… whatever.
“Why are you afraid,” (Jesus asked his disciples on the
stormy Galilean sea), “O you of little
faith?” (Matthew 8:26). Why, indeed? They hadn’t yet received his peace.
But once they had, they were able, like Paul, to endure whatever it took to
prove they were following the real Jesus, not a preconceived notion of Messiah.
“When you are keeping your head when all about you are losing
theirs,” the old saying goes – you must not know what the heck is really going
on. Oops, nope, that wasn’t the one I was looking for! Let me try again…
I’ve thought for a long time that Paul’s challenge to the
Corinthians, to be imitators of him as he was of Christ, was mighty audacious
of him. On closer inspection, I think it shows an audacious trust in the Lord.
Romans 8:29 says, For those whom (God)
foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. Being
conformed doesn’t get much favorable press these days, but when the pattern is
Jesus, it’s far and away the best thing that can happen to us, and makes for
the best witness to authentic community – among ourselves and to the world.
Grace and Peace (without need for pretense),
John
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