What Stories Define the Church?

IN THEOLOGIAN STANLEY Hauerwas’ influential book A Community of Character, he highlights the role narratives play in the formation and identity of a community. Stories have a descriptive function but also a formative function. Stories describe key events in the life of a community and preserve that community’s history. They also shape the community’s worldview and character. Stories influence the community’s ethos and commitments. They drive its actions. Gospel stories testify to the nature of Jesus’ mission and the ethos and commitments of the early church. They foreground Jesus’ character traits, which help shape our own ethical outlook and enable us to imagine an alternative moral space in society.

We live in a fraught political context where Christian identity has become a contested moral space. It’s a space increasingly shaped by dangerous nationalisms that celebrate oppressive power and that depict God in ways that provide theological justification for consolidation of power over others. However, the lectionary texts this month challenge just such depictions of God. They lift up the image of a God who suffers with the suffering rather than a triumphant God exercising domination. They feature characters, including Jesus, who insist that it matters what stories we tell and how we tell them.

What stories do we tell about the church today and how do we tell them? Do such stories shape our legacy as Christians and our moral imagination? How do we continue to tell those stories faithfully and meaningfully, allowing them to shape our lives, even in an era when many Christians are attracted to stories of a militant, oppressive God rather than to God’s motifs of justice?

April 7

What Defines Jesus?

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1 - 2:2; John 20:19-31

IN JOHN 20, Thomas hears that Jesus walked through closed doors effortlessly and surprised the disciples with a visit while Thomas was absent. Thomas appears incredulous and unimpressed by the feat. Thomas gets a bad reputation. He’s portrayed as the naysayer who refused to believe an exceptional story about Jesus making a post-resurrection appearance, but his dilemma is also our dilemma. How was Thomas supposed to know if it was really Jesus with flesh and blood, or a ghost pretending to be him? In John’s historical context, proponents of Docetism believed that Jesus appeared to have a body and appeared to suffer on the cross, but actually did not. Within this context, Thomas wants assurance that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead. More importantly, he wants proof that Jesus physically suffered on the cross.

In Luke’s account, Jesus shows his wounds to the disciples, but John adds the details of Thomas asking to not only see the nail marks but to feel the puncture in Jesus’ side where he was pierced by the soldier’s spear. Thomas heard stories of appearances that portrayed Jesus’ supernatural acts (such as walking through closed doors), but Thomas insisted on experiencing, and perhaps telling, a different story about Jesus. In Thomas’ story, Jesus placing his body on the cross for the sake of others was the quintessential act that defined him. Jesus chides Thomas for his disbelief but does not challenge Thomas’ premise of what defines Jesus’ work. Thomas might seem confused and unbelieving, but he had the greatest clarity about the central aspect of Jesus’ story and mission.

April 14

Inheriting Jesus’ Story

Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36-48

"HAVE YOU ANYTHING here to eat?” (Luke 24:41) seems a strange question coming from Jesus in his post-resurrection appearance in Jerusalem, but Luke’s readers recall that food is closely associated with Jesus in this gospel. He frequents meals and parties — and even is called “a glutton” (Luke 7:34). But Jesus’ question takes on new significance within its literary context. The disciples are justifiably terrified when Jesus shows up at their door, unannounced, after they’ve seen him die. He acknowledges their fear, saying, “Peace be with you.” His efforts to prove he was not a ghost by showing his hands and feet apparently went nowhere. In the end, the ultimate proof of Jesus’ resurrected identity occurred in the mundane act of eating. Just as the disciples’ eyes were opened in the Emmaus story when Jesus broke the bread, here too it was the food event that serves as the moment of epiphany.

Stories about Jesus and food stayed with the disciples more than anything else. They defined Jesus and his mission in Luke. Meal stories signify breaking social barriers — as in the case of the “sinful” woman in Luke 7 who crashed an exclusive party — disrupting established economic structures to clarify his
mission to the oppressed. The detail about food in verse 41 calls to mind the feeding of the multitude in Luke 9. In the feeding stories, as New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson notes, the act of breaking bread is a metaphor for challenging imperial economic structures and extending resources to the poor. Jesus extended resources to the poor by disrupting the Pax Romana that served the interests of a select few. Ironically, Jesus, who had hitherto provided food to others, now asks the disciples to provide it for him. The burden of disrupting existing structures and providing resources to the poor should not lie solely with the Messiah but must be continued by the disciples and all hearers of this good news.

April 21

Whose Lives Are Holy?

Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18

JOHN APPEARS TO offer a straightforward contrast between the good shepherd and the hired hand when he writes, “The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep” (10:12). Such a contrast fits well with the many binaries in this gospel. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, but the political and religious elite who present themselves as “good caretakers” of their people in reality are “hired hands” who disappear when wolves arrive. The good shepherd is celebrated not for having power over others but for the shepherd’s sacrifices. Then the Johannine Jesus takes this further by suggesting that the shepherd’s identity is intrinsically connected to laying down his life for the sheep. John’s theological context is about God identifying with people and placing God’s self on the line for their sake. The story of a shepherd giving life rather than taking it highlights the sanctity of the life of the powerless. In our own times, when leaders often employ violence to “save lives,” John’s words speak powerfully to us. They run counter to dominant theological narratives employing the triumphalist myths of redemptive violence.

The responsibility of making sacrifices for the sake of others extends to us as well. Jesus “laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another,” writes John in his letters (1 John 3:16-24). The theological context for John’s first letter was to remind the community of the commandment Jesus had given them: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). In a time when many close to them were following a heretical path, John wants his community to hold firm. There is antipathy toward and repudiation of those following the false teachings. Here John focuses on strengthening love within the community of believers.

In our own context of extreme political and religious polarization, how do we strengthen love within our Christian communities while disagreeing in significant ways? How do we hold firm to our convictions and still treat each other as neighbors? Perhaps we can learn to shape our story in ways that affirm our histories and commitments without undermining the stories of those different from us.

April 28

Bearing Real Fruit

Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:25-31; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

JOHN'S GOSPEL EMPLOYS a series of “I am” sayings by Jesus that define his character traits and reveal divine attributes for the disciples to emulate (for example, “I am the bread of life” and “I am the light of the world”). In John 15, the language of vine and the vinegrower highlights a Christological attribute and also recalls a story in Isaiah 5 of God faithfully nurturing a vineyard that did not yield the desired fruit. In John’s account, the divine vinegrower actively takes measures to ensure that each branch can bear fruit. Here Jesus celebrates the gift of the disciples continuing to “abide” in him. Not as a privileged status, but as necessary to bear fruit for the sake of others. Bearing fruit is the proof of “abiding” in Jesus. In their commentary on John, Susan Hylen and Gail O’Day note that the psalms open with references to those whose “delight is in the law of the Lord” and who will “yield their fruit in its season” (1:2-3). Christian discipleship is not about status in the community but about actions that promote God’s justice and positively impact those most oppressed. Christian identity is not justified by self-identification, going to church, or doctrinal expertise, but is manifest in carrying out the works of love and justice. Commitment to justice is never abstract. We should recognize it, in concrete terms, by its fruits.