In Jesus’ Name

In an essay enti­tled “Mil­len­ni­al Ortho­doxy,” I out­lined — albeit rather snark­i­ly — my qualms with the dilu­tion (or deval­u­a­tion) of ortho­dox chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy with­in the Epis­co­pal Church, a baby-boomer backed trend which I posit­ed was unap­peal­ing to mil­len­ni­als like myself, who are search­ing for a church that is more than yet anoth­er social jus­tice non-prof­it. A cler­gy-friend of mine recent­ly chal­lenged me to ask what is authen­tic mis­sion and whether the Epis­co­pal Church — which seems end­less­ly enam­ored of things like so-called “mis­sion­al” the­ol­o­gy — real­ly grasped it.

Has it ful­ly under­stood the real­i­ty of Christ’s great com­mis­sion, that which has been entrust­ed to us, and mis­sion, his despatch­ing us into the world? In the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, he argued, we mis­in­ter­pret­ed mis­sion to mean con­ver­sion often by coer­cion, that is, a con­ver­sion with­out sub­stance. Mis­sion­ar­ies flocked to far flung climes and locales to con­vert the “sav­age hea­then” to “civ­i­lized faith­ful­ness.” Today, on the oth­er hand, we look at mis­sion as social action with­out reli­gious per­sua­sion, that is, social action with­out substance.

In both instances, our approach to mis­sion has missed the mark, fail­ing to demostrate our core con­vic­tion that Christ is the moti­va­tion­al cen­ter of our lives, that our out­reach and our ser­vice flows forth from the inspi­ra­tion of the Holy Ghost; and that in Christ is our redemp­tion by his blood and our sal­va­tion through his grace. We fail to remark upon our salvif­ic jour­ney of regen­er­a­tion, renew­al, sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion, trans­for­ma­tion, and glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. We fail to be sent out by him, instead pre­sum­ably going out of our own accord.

Why is it no longer self-evi­dent in our actions that we are“christians,” the fol­low­ers, friends, dis­ci­ples of Jesus Christ? Why do we seek to hide that he is our sav­ior and redeemer, the mover of our being? I sus­pect that some­thing is amiss, that our out­ward shame is root­ed in an inward guilt that gnaws at us, a seem­ing­ly unas­suagable guilt that we pro­fess a spir­i­tu­al faith with­in the con­text of a mate­r­i­al insti­tu­tion that has not always been a faith­ful wit­ness of Christ’s love, that has used its long­stand­ing soci­etal influ­ence to cor­rupt the faith in favor of princes and prin­ci­pal­i­ties, deny­ing Christ for gain of wealth and pow­er — not absolute­ly, but enough.

That we remain com­mit­ted to insti­tu­tion­al reform, as well as resti­tu­tion and rec­om­pense for past wrongs, does not seem to stem this per­va­sive guilt or empow­er us to reaf­firm what is right, what is good and joy­ful in Christ, despite those wrongs. Instead, we hang our heads, employ­ing our­selves in admit­ted­ly good work, but remain­ing always silent lest we res­ur­rect the mem­o­ry of our the fathers’failings.

If “noth­ing is cov­ered up that will not be revealed, or hid­den that will not be known,” if what­ev­er is said in the dark shall be heard in the light, if what­ev­er is whis­pered in pri­vate rooms shall be pro­claimed upon the house­tops, do we have any right to with­hold the gospel of Jesus Christ, to omit the procla­ma­tion of our faith, for fear of offend­ing those who deserve the oppor­tu­ni­ty to befriend our Lord and be saved?

Jesus Christ com­mand­ed his apos­tles, record­ed in the gospel of John, “that you love one anoth­er; even as I have loved you, that you also love one anoth­er. By this all men will know that you are my dis­ci­ples, if you have love for one anoth­er,” which John again reit­er­ates in his first epis­tle writ­ing, “that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one anoth­er, just as he has com­mand­ed us,” that “all who keep his com­mand­ments abide in him, and he in them, and that by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spir­it which he has giv­en us.”

Cer­tain­ly the works of love are man­i­fest and cer­tain­ly the Epis­co­pal Church acts on its con­fes­sion and under­takes to give meat to the hun­gry, drink to the thirsty, invi­ta­tion to the stranger, cloth­ing to the naked, vis­i­ta­tion to the sick and the impris­oned, jus­tice to the wid­ow and the orphan; extend­ing arms of wel­come and love to the least and great­est amongst us. I do not ques­tion the Epis­co­pal Church’s com­mit­ment to and fufill­ment of the imper­a­tive to love and serve one anoth­er in Christ’s name.

Nev­er­the­less, I do won­der — often with a lit­tle ire — why we do not make it clear­er who is the source and what is the sub­stance of these good works; that we do not bet­ter under­take the com­mand­ment to also “go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole cre­ation,” as the gospel of Mark records. Or, as in the gospel of Matthew, to “there­fore go and make dis­ci­ples of all nations, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

We need not com­port our­selves like nine­teenth cen­tu­ry mis­sion­ar­ies, tact­less mes­sen­gers bray­ing, “Con­vert, hea­then, lest ye be damned to the abyss, where­in the worm sleep­eth not and an unquench­able hell­fire bur­neth eter­nal!” Rather, we must raise our voic­es just enough to wit­ness to the hope with­in us. We bear false wit­ness by omit­ting the most rel­e­vant fact of that hope: its ulti­mate begin­ning and end.

James in his epis­tle says, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith” but we have tried to show our works apart from our faith, appar­ent­ly ashamed to share its ori­gin and in so doing deny the gospel to those most enti­tled to it. We have helped to alle­vi­ate mate­r­i­al pover­ty, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help­ing to per­pet­u­ate spir­i­tu­al pover­ty. We have fought for civ­il rights, but denied peo­ple spir­i­tu­al rights. We have been guilty of bear­ing false wit­ness, of omit­ting attri­bu­tion, pla­gia­riz­ing and claim­ing for own that which is prop­er­ly god’s. We have for­got­ten to include the byline, “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

Inter­nal­ly, we pray in the name of Christ. Exter­nal­ly, we act out his com­mand­ment to love one anoth­er as if it were mere­ly a human imper­a­tive and not a divine injunc­tion. Why do our esteemed lead­ers insist on wax­ing poet­ic, refer­ring to Jesus Christ only through the most opaque allu­sions and oblique metaphors? Only in the epis­to­lary for­mal­i­ties of salu­ta­tions and clos­ings “in Christ?” Only in the fixed phras­ing our prayer book, often heard by the ini­ti­at­ed alone?

We talk about insti­tu­tion­al trans­paren­cy as a for­ward-going neces­si­ty, but do not con­sid­er doc­tri­nal trans­paren­cy wor­thy of note? How can Christ Epis­co­pal Church, Peo­ria nev­er men­tion the name of Christ save when it refers to its own name? On the first of Jan­u­ary, the Epis­co­pal Church offi­cial­ly cel­e­brates the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, but how often do the good peo­ple of St. Swithin’s men­tion his name the rest of the year?

I was raised in a home that tac­it­ly pro­fessed a vague iter­a­tion of sec­u­lar human­ism. When I first encoun­tered Jesus Christ, I expe­ri­enced the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of his love. Sud­den­ly and inex­plic­a­bly, I found myself — a deeply intro­spec­tive and inward ado­les­cent — trans­formed into an empath­ic and oth­er-focused indi­vid­ual. I know well how self-cen­tered I would be were Christ not the cen­ter of my exis­tence — or bet­ter, how much more self-cen­tered I would be. I feel deeply the pull of Him that turned me around, and upside down, and inside out and exposed me to a love that fed my heart and through whom I learned to love.

Before I befriend­ed Jesus Christ; before I sub­mit­ted in friend­ship to him; before I under­went his regen­er­a­tive ablu­tions; before I broke bread and supped wine, the obla­tion of his body, the hos­pi­tal­i­ty of his table, I had nev­er wept in empa­thy. After I gave myself to him, the suf­fer­ings of peo­ple, real peo­ple, brought tears to my eyes and com­pelled me seek to relieve them. I do not pre­tend that I am a per­fect chris­t­ian or a per­fect ser­vant, syn­ony­mous as far as I am con­cered. In fact, I am far, far from it. Yet, despite my fail­ings, I know who is respon­si­ble for my pal­try successes.

I am unashamed to say that I am the work of Jesus Christ, fash­ioned by his father’s hands in my mother’s womb. It is intol­er­a­ble that we allow our shame, our guilt, and our affec­ta­tions of hos­pitable­ness and wel­come to under­mine our faith in Jesus and our procla­ma­tion of the same. So, let me say it aloud: I believe that all I think, say, and do that is good and just is the result of that grace giv­en in abun­dance by JESUS CHRIST, my lord and sav­ior. It may be unpop­u­lar for most. It may sound naïve to some. It may have neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions for many. Nev­er­the­less, it is, and as such I declare it, for truth should be declared.