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One blistering summer, some twenty years ago, I ventured by train and jeep towards a remote mountain town in the Himalayan foothills. After a solid month in the heat and the noise, the overwhelming pace of the streets in a major south asian city, I was relieved to find this village in the clouds where I would spend a few weeks sipping mountain air, and recharging, before returning to all that awaited me below.
Not too long into my time there, I met a local pastor. Through conversation, he invited me to participate in an early-morning bible study in his home. Most days it was just the two of us. But one morning a man in his 30s, a local business owner, a person of prominence in the community, showed up to the study. He came to learn more about Jesus. He had a lot of unanswered questions.
And I know we lament sometimes, about the changing receptivity to Christianity in our part of the world, but it’s important to remember that it was far less Christian in that mountain town than it is here in the hills and valleys of the East Kootenays.
This isn’t to say, of course, that the place wasn’t religious. It was. It was a place where other religious traditions were dominant, although that too, was changing. Along with the imports of wave after wave of American culture came its recognizable secular religiosity, marked by unfettered capitalism and hyper-individualism, two of our chief exports since the close of the second world war.
As I mentioned, this was not a predominantly Christian part of the world. And, if one were to convert from, say, Hinduism or Buddhism, it could mean real upheaval. Real unrest in the community. Real persecution for the convert. Not the “well that’s weird, but you-do-you,” postmodern shrug we often see here. Actual shunning. Actual rejection. You would risk being cut out of the family. The end of friendships. And in a related way, the death of your livelihood.
This is where I first came face to face with the Cost of Discipleship. This was probably the first time I had seriously considered the possibility that following Jesus could literally cost you everything.
I grew up in a culture that was predominantly Christian. To be Christian bore virtually no cost. But there in Darjeeling, to choose Jesus was to give up more than a couple of hours on a Sunday and my 10% tithe to the ministry of the church. This would be a choice with life-altering consequences.
I grew up in a very white, very Christian town in southwestern Ontario. My family – we’d be in church every week. Often more than once. We were involved in a variety of activities – Sunday School, Youth Group, Mid-Week Prayer gatherings. My parents were involved in musical leadership and governance and a new building project. When our congregation moved from a rented room to a purpose-built space, we were there alongside others, many weekends, helping with a variety of jobs around the church. We were all in.
It was in this community that I learned from an early age that Jesus Loved Me. It’s also the place where I felt the deep care of Mrs. Turner, my Sunday School teacher. I experienced the generosity of the ladies in the kitchen who slipped me sugar cubes when my mom wasn’t looking. I could tell that I was loved because of the care and the connection they offered; because of the interest they expressed in my life, and the lives of others.
Growing up in that environment, I experienced love through their actions, but also through their words. The encouragement they offered. The advice they gave. The examples they showed. The ways they spoke about and embodied Jesus’ love in their lives. The way they called me to account when I was being a jerk to my brother, and the way they encouraged me as I was learning, through my various stumbling attempts, to live my life in the way of Jesus.
I was in that community from birth until age 14, when my family moved down the highway to another town. But thinking about that time, I remember it as a community in which I felt encouraged to see myself as a beloved child of God. A sinner, yes. Someone who messed things up, who fell short of God’s glory. We talked about that too. But more than anything, I knew that God loved me, in no small part, because that is what I experienced from others in the community.
In that community, we were apprentices in the way of Jesus, seeking to lead lives of love in response to the love we had received. Lives bearing the fruit of love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and goodness, faithfulness and gentleness, and yes, even self-control. Hard work for an impulsive teenager whose brain wasn’t yet fully formed.
We learned to share the stories of our faith–however imperfectly–to share the stories of God active in our lives in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. We learned to bear witness to the God who is always acting, always speaking, always loving, in our lives, and for the life of the world. Generosity and hospitality were hallmarks of this way of living.
At this point in today’s service, I wouldn’t be surprised if you noticed a little bit of nostalgia creeping in. And if you did, you wouldn’t be wrong. I haven’t thought about this community in years, but as I do, I find myself longing for what seemed a much simpler time, a time when I felt surrounded in love, when the life of faith seemed much more clearcut.
The role of the church in my life and the life of my church community seemed solid, comforting, safe. That was a time of simplicity before the complexity of the world as we know it came crashing in.
This brings us to John’s apocalyptic letter, the book of Revelation. It’s not every day the lectionary gives us a chance to hear from Revelation. In fact, while there are twenty-two chapters and over 400 verses in John’s Apocalypse, no more than 41 verses are read as part of our three year Sunday lectionary cycle. We ignore ninety percent of this glorious, fantastical, disturbing, prophetic, and altogether confusing book.
Which is too bad.
I happen to like John's Revelation. Not because it's warm and fuzzy. Not because of its easy assurances. Not because it promises a clear path forward in confusing times.
Instead, I like Revelation because it was written by and for a confused people in a time when their faith and their way of life was being tested and tried. It was written by and for people whose certainties were falling apart.
In the midst of oppression and persecution; in the midst of genocide and war; in the midst of environmental degradation and a volatile political landscape, John writes this letter to a people battered and bruised. John writes to remind the people of the seven churches in Asia that despite all they’re seeing and experiencing on the political landscape, there is still one worthy of their trust; still one worth patterning their lives after. And his name? His name is Jesus.
John writes to churches who know all too well that the politicians’ promises of freedom, liberty, and justice for all, are built on the backs of the poor. That the promises of a return to greatness depend on oppression. And so this letter is an act of prophetic imagination.
John’s prophetic letter translates the peoples’ all-too-familiar daily reality to a parallel universe. It demands that we look ahead, not for what we expect, not for what we see as practical or viable, but for an imagined future in which God’s holistic peace is experienced and lived through self-giving love.
For John, this vision is marked by new heavens and a new earth, a vision where all things are made new, where there is truth, and justice, and reconciliation; a future where the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations; where God dwells amongst the people, where all tears will be wiped away.
This morning we could spend our time talking about the steps to get from A to B. We could talk about strategic plans, and how we will call the next minister who will solve all of our problems (they won’t, by the way, since they’re as human and fallible as the rest of us).
Let’s not make any minister into saviour, scapegoat, or sacrificial lamb. The job’s tricky enough as it is.
We could spend our time thinking about those things, but instead, I want to return to the lessons I learned in that pastor’s living room in the Himalayan foothills. What happened that morning was more instructive for the world we’re living in than anything we Canadian Christians might remember from the last 70 years.
In a world where Christianity is not dominant; in a world where living faith in Jesus is marginal, maligned, or ignored, what we need more than anything are communities committed to faithfulness, imagination, and bravery. We need communities of people who see themselves as outposts of God’s love. Communities who care for one another beyond reason. Communities who care for their neighbours beyond reason.
What this world needs now is love (sweet love). The love of communities united in prayer and worship, study and learning, seeking to pattern individual and corporate lives after the loving, liberating way of Jesus. Communities of deep intentionality, where formation is at the centre. Where we unite our desires not so much in learning about Jesus, but in learning to embody the Jesus life. Communities of radical gratitude. Radical hospitality. Radical care. Communities who, in the face of skepticism, band together in bravery and shared risk for the sake of their neighbours, for the sake of the world God loves.
In the misty mountains of Darjeeling, the man I met needed to know, before he took the leap, that this community would embrace him should the worst come his way. How would they come alongside one another, how would they walk with one another and with Jesus through the challenging times ahead?
In short, were they prepared to do and be the very thing that Jesus promised?
In a world where following Jesus--truly following Jesus--is costly, what kind of people will we choose to be?
