Shocking. They took political propaganda from the empire and changed the words to make it about their Lord. To join up with these people was to risk your life. And not only this, but they made claims about the whole way society was structured.
In a letter to a church in a region called Galatia, one of the first Christians, Paul, claimed that “in Christ”—the phrase Christians used to describe this new reality—there was “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female.”18 He is calling the entire culture into question, insisting that through this risen-from-the-dead Jesus, the whole world is being reorganized. And in this new reality, every person is equal. Everybody. Paul is the first person in the history of world literature to argue that all human beings are equal.19
Not only were these first Christians subverting the dominant power structures of their world, but they were confident that the resurrected Christ was working in them and through them to reclaim God’s dream for the world. The writer Luke gives us insight into what this confidence looked like in their everyday lives. He wrote that they were witnessing the resurrection, “and God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.”20 What was the result of the resurrection, according to Luke? “No needy persons among them.”
Remember, the caesars claimed they were the ones who provided for everyone and saved everyone and made the world a better place. For these first Christians, the question was, Who is Lord? Jesus or Caesar? Who orders society? Who provides for you? Who puts food on your table? Who brings peace to the world?
To be a part of the church was to join a countercultural society that was partnering with God to create a new kind of culture, right under the nose of the caesars. These Christians made sure everybody in their midst had enough to eat. They made sure everybody was able to pay their bills. They made sure there was enough to go around. The resurrection for them was not an abstract spiritual concept; it was a concrete social and economic reality. God raised Jesus from the dead to show the world that Jesus is Lord, and it is through his power and his example and his Spirit that the world is restored.
It is important to remember that we rarely find these first Christians trying to prove that the resurrection actually occurred. For one, a lot of the people who saw Jesus after he rose from the dead were still alive, so if people had questions and doubts, they could talk to somebody who was actually there.21 But there’s another reason: Everybody’s god in the first century had risen from the dead.22 To claim a resurrection had occurred was nothing new: Julius Caesar himself was reported to have ascended to the right hand of the gods after his death. To try to prove there was an empty tomb wouldn’t have gotten very far with the average citizen of the Roman Empire; they had heard it all before. This is why so many passages about the early church deal with possessions and meals and generosity.23 They understood that people are rarely persuaded by arguments, but more often by experiences. Living, breathing, flesh-and-blood experiences of the resurrection community. They saw it as their responsibility to put Jesus’s message on display. To the outside world, it was less about proving and more about inviting people to experience this community of Jesus’s followers for themselves.
And so these first Christians passed on the faith to the next generation who passed it on to the next generation who passed it on to the next generation until it got to . . . us. Here. Today. Those who follow Jesus and belong to his church. And now it is our turn. It is our turn to step up and take responsibility for who the church is going to be for a new generation. It is our turn to redefine and reshape and dream it all up again. It is our turn to rediscover the beautiful, dangerous, compelling idea that a group of people, surrendered to God and to each other, really can change the world.
Serving Others
I am learning that the church is at its best when it gives itself away. And this is because blessing is always instrumental. Let me explain. In Genesis 12, God tells a man named Abram that he’s going to bless him, and through him, he is going to bless the whole world. This is the birth of the Jewish people, whom God wants to use to reach everybody. This blessing is instrumental in nature. God wants to use Abraham, to flow through him, to have him be the conduit through whom God can bless everybody else.24 Abraham is just a vessel. God doesn’t choose people just so they’ll feel good about themselves or secure in their standing with God or whatever else. God chooses people to be used to bless other people. Elected, predestined, chosen—whatever words people use for this reality, the point is never the person elected or chosen or predestined. The point is that person serving others, making their lives better.
The second significant idea in Genesis 12 is that Abraham’s calling is universal. It is for everybody. All kinds of people all over the place are going to be blessed by God through Abraham. God has no boundaries. God blesses everybody. People who don’t believe in God. People who are opposed to God. People who do violent, evil things. God’s intentions are to bless everybody. Jesus continues this idea in many of his teachings. In the book of Luke he says, “I am among you as one who serves.”25 He not only refers to himself as a servant, sent to serve others, but he teaches his disciples that the greatest in his kingdom are the ones who serve.26 For Jesus, everything is upside down. The best and greatest and most important are the ones who humble themselves, set their needs and desires aside, and selflessly serve others.
So what is a group of people living this way called? That’s the church. The church doesn’t exist for itself; it exists to serve the world. It is not ultimately about the church; it’s about all the people God wants to bless through the church. When the church loses sight of this, it loses its heart. This is especially true today in the world we live in where so many people are hostile to the church, many for good reason. We reclaim the church as a blessing machine not only because that is what Jesus intended from the beginning but also because serving people is the only way their perceptions of church are ever going to change. This is why it is so toxic for the gospel when Christians picket and boycott and complain about how bad the world is. This behavior doesn’t help. It makes it worse. It isn’t the kind of voice Jesus wants his followers to have in the world. Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be.
Good News
Another truth about the church we’re embracing is that the gospel is good news, especially for those who don’t believe it.
Imagine an average street in an average city in an average country, if there is such a place. Let’s imagine Person X lives in a house on this street. Next door is a Hindu, and on the other side is a Muslim. Across the street is an atheist, next door to them an agnostic, and next door on the other side, someone from Ohio.
Imagine Person X becomes a Christian. Maybe she read something or had friends who inspired her to learn more, or maybe she had an addiction and through a recovery movement she surrendered her life to God. However it came to be, she became a follower of Jesus. Let’s say she starts living out Jesus’s teachings, actually taking him seriously that she can become a compelling force for good in the world. She is becoming more generous, more compassionate, more forgiving, more loving. Is she becoming a better or worse neighbor? If we are her neighbors, we’re thrilled about her new faith. We find ourselves more and more grateful for a neighbor like this. We wish more people would be like this.
Let’s make some observations about this street. The good news of
