Anabaptist Identity III – Reconciliation
Is the Center of Our Work
May 29, 2016
PRMC- James 3:13-4:8a
Introduction: The Duel[1]
Jan Block, whose story is also told
in the Martyr’s Mirror, lived in the Netherlands in the mid-1500s and was a bit
of a playboy by many accounts. Because
of his landholdings, he did not have to work and this freed him to live life
frivolously.
One night, he was at the Black Raven where he and some others had too much to drink. A friend of his, Pieter, who was also a lord on the local court, decided to dump the girl that he had and to take Jan’s. Without thinking, Jan drew his sword and challenged Pieter.
Jan and Pieter dueled for some time, each of them fairly evenly matched. Finally, Jan was able to send Pieter’s sword into the fire and send Pieter to the floor. As Pieter lay there, Jan put his sword to the man’s throat. Pieter began to bleed; but before Jan finished him off, a stranger grabbed his “shoulders and pulled him back. ‘Hey, friend,’ he said good-naturedly. ‘You don’t want to do that. You made your point. Don’t lose your life over it. After all, he is a lord of the court.’”
Jan quickly realized that the stranger was right and that he had almost gone too far. He helped Pieter up and offered him a handkerchief for his wound. Jan learned that the stranger’s name was Symon van Maren and that he was new to town. The two became good friends.
One day some time later, Symon asked Jan to come with him to a more private place to talk. Jan reluctantly went along with him. As they walked along the river bank, Symon told Jan about how he had been reading the Bible and how it had been changing his life.
“’You know,’ said Symon, ‘we’ve had some good times together, but I don’t know if I’ve ever told you about my wife.’ ‘Your wife?’ said Jan, his eyes going wide. ‘I never knew you had a wife.’ ‘Yes, well I do. I left her back in ‘sHertogenbos…with three children. I guess there are a lot of things I haven’t told you - things I don’t feel too good about, either. I never knew what to do about them until I started reading the New Testament.’”
Jan asked Symon more about this and was surprised that someone besides a monk or a priest would be reading the New Testament. Symon shared that ‘It told me how to be forgiven for those things I’ve done wrong, how to be free from those aches so deep down inside me that I can’t even…that I can’t even describe them… It told me how to become a completely new person. And it made me… it made me want to go back to my wife and family.’
Jan couldn’t understand why Symon would leave him and his good life here. Symon gave Jan his New Testament to read so that he too might understand and told him about the tailor in town who could answer Jan’s questions. With that Symon left and headed home to his family.
Once Jan’s anger subsided enough that his curiosity took over, he began reading the New Testament for himself. “As he read, the Lord so opened his heart that he began to understand how his former life had not pleased God. He became convicted of how he had wasted his time and money in worthless carousing and he began to develop a hunger to become the ‘new creature’ of which the Testament spoke. He saw, as he read, that his conversion could come only as he sought God’s forgiveness and surrendered his life to the Lord.”
He then went to the tailor and began to ask questions. Once the tailor learned that Jan knew Symon, he closed his shop and they went upstairs to talk. “From this talk, Jan learned how eager God was to forgive the truly repentant sinner and make him the person Jan longed to become. They stayed together talking all day as the old tailor instructed Jan in the Christian life.
“Late that afternoon, the tailor took Jan down to the dock. Along with several other believers they got into a boat and rowed up river. ‘We do this,’ said the tailor, ‘because it is an easy way to meet together without being overheard or raising suspicion. To anyone who sees us, we’re just a boatload of people going… who knows where?’ He smiled at Jan. ‘Would you like to be baptized?’ That night before the moon came up, Jan received baptism and joined the church.”
As Jan’s life changed, people noticed and he soon came under suspicion. His land was confiscated and he was forced to look for work. While searching one day, his old friend Pieter, whom he had almost killed that night in the Black Raven, spotted him and followed him. Still angry over the scar on his neck, he reported Jan’s whereabouts to the authorities.
The Passage: James 3:13-4:8a
Jan’s story
brings me to our passage for this morning, James 3:13-4:8a and the third of our
Anabaptist core values: Reconciliation is the center of our work. The end of James chapter 3 and beginning of
chapter 4 give some helpful perspective to this core value.
First we
learn a bit more about wisdom. In our
culture, we tend to equate knowledge with wisdom. In reality while knowledge may aid wisdom, it
is not the same thing. One may have all
the knowledge in the world but have little or no wisdom. Knowledge is the gathering and assimilation of
information. Wisdom is the ability to
use what we know, make good choices and to discern a way forward.
As James
tells us, when we have wisdom from above, it is “first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of
partiality or hypocrisy.” This wisdom is
essential for us to carry out the work that God has called us to and yet it
tends to be so contrary to our natural approach to things.
Paul tells
us in I Corinthians 1:25, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than
human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” God desired to be reconciled with humanity
and that has happened through the foolishness of the cross. How many of us would sacrifice our son in the
hope that we would be reconciled to someone let alone someone who wronged us?
It seems like nothing more that
foolishness to us and yet it is so much wiser than many wise people could ever
dare to imagine. But our work of
reconciling is not just about us being reconciled to God or about us leading
others to reconciliation with God, as important as that is.
Second, James names where many if
not all of our conflicts and disputes come from. They come from within us. They come from our efforts to have things the
way that we want them to be. We have
cravings that we want to fulfill. We
have things that we want to have. We
have self-serving tendencies that put ourselves above the good of others or of
the whole.
In this way, we tend to be drawn to
the ways of the world and as James portrays this when we become friends with
the world, we are enemies with God. When
we live out the ways of the world, we find that we are not reconciled with
God. When we try to serve our own
purposes, these often come in conflict with others and we then need to be
reconciled with our brothers and sisters as well. We are to draw near to God, to seek
reconciliation with God and God will in turn draw near to us. But we are also about the work of reconciling
one to another.
Our faith is more than a vertical relationship with
God. It is also about a horizontal
relationship with all of humanity. When
Jesus was asked in Matthew 22:36-40, “Teacher, which is the greatest
commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is
the first and greatest commandment. [This is reconciling with God] And
the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the
Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
It’s not the first command but it is like the first
and Jesus could not leave it out of his answer, be reconciled to your brother
as well. All of the Law and the Prophets
hang on these two commandments. All of
scripture hangs from reconciliation to God and among humanity. Reconciliation is the center of our work.
Recap and Background[2]
To recap,
we have covered the first two of our core values. First
that Jesus is the center of our faith.
Second that community is the center of our lives. Today, we come to Becker’s third and final
core value for an Anabaptist minded Christian.
That is that Reconciliation is the center of our work. “For the early Christians, being a Christian
was a blend of believing in Jesus, belonging to the church, and behaving in a
new way.” This would be another way to
state our core values.
“Jesus came
so that people might believe (Jesus is the center of our faith), become part of
God’s family (community is the center of our lives), and be empowered to behave
in a new way (reconciliation is the center of our work). The early disciples helped many throughout
the known world to become reconciled to God and to each other. Jesus anticipated that people would offend
each other in this new family so he provided steps for reconciliation as
outlined in Matthew 18. Offended persons
are to go to each other, one-to-one. If
the offense is not resolved, further steps are to be taken.
“In the
Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7), Jesus gave guidelines for behavior in God’s
family. He taught his disciples that
true peace comes through knowing the truth, repenting of wrong, and treating
people in a new spirit. ‘Don’t just love
those who love you.’ He commanded. ‘Even
the pagans do that much! Love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’” (Matt 5:43-48)
“One of the
greatest challenges facing the early Christians was the racial, religious and
cultural conflicts between Jews and Gentiles.
After ministering to people of many backgrounds, and inviting many into
the family of God, the Apostles were reconciled and came to agreement on how
people from these different backgrounds could become one body through faith in
Christ. As a result, the church
developed a culture of peace.
“Early
believers were transformed in their thoughts, relationships and actions. This happened through belief in Jesus,
belonging to each other in small groups, and through the power of the Holy
Spirit. For the first 250 years, [the
church] refused to engage in military combat.
They understood that they were under orders to love their enemies, not
kill them. Jesus had taught them to pray
for those who persecuted them and to overcome evil with good.
“The
Apostle Paul saw the first Christians as ambassadors of reconciliation and
said, ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old
has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself
through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was
reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against
them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are
therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through
us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who
had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God.’ (2 Cor. 5:17-21).
“Unfortunately,
Constantine and Augustine did not continue in this tradition. While Constantine affirmed Christianity and
took Christian priests into his ranks, he did not make a major change in his
beliefs, belonging or behavior.
Constantine marched entire armies through the river to baptize them even
though many, probably most, had not been changed in their beliefs,
relationships or style of life. Instead
of seeking to reconcile people to God and to each other, he was intent on
conquering them for political gain.
“Augustine
was very concerned about personal moral behaviors such as drunkenness,
covetousness, gambling and adultery, but had little to say about being
transformed into people of peace.
Although he believed that war was not the way of Jesus, he invented the
‘just war theory.’” This “says that in
certain situations, Christians may participate in violence and war. The ‘just war theory’ has remained the basic
position of most Christians.
“Theologically,
Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and others followed in Augustine’s footsteps. They emphasized personal forgiveness,
obedience to the Ten Commandments, and accepted the ‘just war theory.’ Although some new understandings of faith had
been accomplished, these mainline reformers fell short of seeing the church
radically changed. Unfortunately, the
difference between the behavior of Christians and non-Christians became almost
indistinguishable.
“Early Anabaptist
Christians under the leadership of Menno Simons and others believed that
through a personal relationship with Christ and obedience within a
Spirit-filled community, a person’s behavior could be changed into the likeness
of Christ. They emphasized peace with
God, peace with each other, and peace with their enemies whom they refused to
fight. The Sword of the Spirit, the
Scriptures, was their only weapon.”
“The
Anabaptist movement was also the evangelistic movement of the Reformation. With evangelistic passion, key leaders went
throughout Europe seeking to reconcile people to God and to each other. By the thousands, people joined the new
movement.
“The
Anabaptist movement was also a movement for social justice. Their leaders addressed many of the economic
and social concerns held by peasants who were revolting against the dictatorial
nature of the feudal system. As a
result, the movement gained many members from among the peasants, who then
gathered into small congregations throughout much of Europe.
“Through
their study of Scripture and their emphasis on transformation of life, most
Anabaptist Christians came to believe that it was wrong to participate in war
and violent behavior. Like the early
disciples, they refused to join the military even though the enemies of Western
civilization were at the gates of Vienna.
Rather than fight back against their persecutors, they chose to follow
the example of Jesus who ‘did not retaliate when people hurled their insults at
him, and made no threats when he suffered’ (I Peter 2:23)”
The Sub-points
This is
significant background for Becker’s three sub-points of Core Value #3,
Reconciliation is the Center of Our Work.
The first of those is that “Accepting Jesus leads to transformed
living. Anabaptist-minded Christians
believe that to be a Christian one needs to believe in Jesus, belong to his
body, and behave in a Christ-like manner.
This is only possible when we have been renewed by the Holy Spirit
through the transformation of our minds and hearts.
“Just as
God took the initiative in Jesus Christ to reconcile us to himself and to
invite us into his family, so we are to take the initiative to share the gospel
with others so that they might be reconciled to God, adopted into his family,
and transformed in their lifestyle. We
are to continually look for opportunities to invite people to accept Jesus as
their Savior and Lord so that this might happen.
“We become
Christians when we ‘surrender as much of ourselves as we can to as much of
Christ as we can understand.’ Accepting
Jesus will cause us to change our thinking, our friendships, and our way of
living. Broken or alienated people will
be transformed as they join us in God’s family where we, too, are being
transformed. The new relationships and
context change nearly everything and bring us together into a stark contrast
with the world. Mental, emotional,
physical and social areas of life are transformed through our new relationships
with Christ and each other.
Becker’s second
sub-point is that “Transformed people ‘think reconciliation’ and involve
themselves in ministries of reconciliation.
While some Christians believe that evangelism is at the center of their
work, others emphasize peace and social action as their center. These two important parts of outreach can be
brought together in the concept of reconciliation. The purposes of God are ‘to reconcile to
himself (God) all things through Christ’ (Col. 1:19)
“When we
come upon someone who is in conflict with God, with a neighbor, a fellow
employee or a family member, we are not to immediately denounce one party or
take sides. We are to ‘think
reconciliation.’ This may mean exploring
the cause of the conflict and helping the parties to make it right through
honest confession, careful listening, unselfish forgiving, and appropriate
restitution.
“Anabaptist-minded
Christians feel called to help people of all backgrounds, genders, races and
nations into a relationship with Christ and with each other… Reconciling
relationships is at the center or our work.
However, we need to remind ourselves that we cannot help others go
farther than we ourselves have gone.
Even as we seek to help others become transformed, we need to keep
growing in our own understanding of how we need to be changed.”
Becker’s third
sub-point is “Transformed people work for peace.” This is significant for me personally,
because we as Mennonites can sometimes become so caught up on the peace thing
or on the fact that we are pacifists that we loose sight of why this
understanding is important to us. We are
not people of peace just because we think that it is a good idea. We do not choose to be nonviolent just
because killing is wrong. Our positions
on war and violence flow out of knowing that Jesus is the center of our faith,
community is the center of our lives and reconciliation is the center of our
work. Nonviolence is a part of the
reconciling work that we are called to.
“As
transformed followers of Jesus, we are to fight evil as hard, or even harder,
than anyone else. But we need to fight
differently. Jesus used words, emotions,
and nonviolent actions, not guns and bombs.
At all times, we are called to imitate the example and spirit of
Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount gives us
guidance. The Holy Spirit gives us the
power to live in this highly disciplined way.
Our ‘attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus’ (Philippians
2:5). We are challenged to say with the
Apostle Paul, ‘For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world
does. The weapons we fight with are not
the weapons of the world.’ (2 Cor. 10:3-4)
“It is due
to our view of salvation as transformation that Anabaptist-minded Christians
refuse to be involved in war and violence.
While modern warfare teaches soldiers to lie, to hate and to destroy,
those whose minds and spirits that have been transformed by Jesus will refuse
to do such things even if commanded to do so by important authorities.
“History
and experience indicate that violence leads to more violence. Violence can only be reduced by nonviolence
and by correcting the injustices that motivate it.
“Unfortunately,
millions of people have died and are still dying because Christians, in the
tradition of Constantine, Augustine and Luther, are involving themselves in war
instead of serving as reconcilers. As
followers of Christ, we need to give ourselves to loving our enemies, praying
for those who persecute us, and to overcoming evil, ‘not by might nor power,
but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.’ (Zechariah 4:6)”
Burned at the Stake[3]
Jan was soon captured and taken to prison. “One week after his arrest, Jan appeared in court and confessed his faith. Pieter did not say one word during the hearing but stared impassively at Jan the whole time. In the weeks that followed, Jan was put on the rack three times. He refused to recant. The suffering he endured was so great that sometimes he couldn’t think clearly. But he never lost his resolve to remain faithful to the Lord.”
One day Pieter came to his cell and explained that he never thought it would come to this. He encouraged Jan to recant. Jan explained that he couldn’t and that he had realized what a miserable sinner he had been. Pieter didn’t understand and so Jan told him about how he had read the New Testament and repented.
Pieter still didn’t seem to understand, but he did hear Jan’s testimony. “The next day as he watched Jan march to the scaffold, [Pieter] couldn’t believe the obvious joy displayed on the man’s face. An observer not knowing better might have thought he was on his way to a wedding feast or a festival.” Jan Block was burned at the stake in 1572.
Jan experienced the reconciling work of God in the world. Jan witnessed the affects of Symon’s reconciliation to God and the call for his reconciliation with his family. Jan was himself reconciled to God and in some ways reconciled to Pieter as well. Perhaps Pieter even became reconciled after witnessing Jan’s death. We don’t know.
Conclusion:
Jesus is the center of our faith. Community is the center of our lives. And reconciliation is the center of our
work. This leads us to transformed living
like that of Jan Block. As transformed
people, we think reconciliation as we encounter conflicts in the world and as
we invite others to faith in Jesus Christ.
And as transformed people, we work for peace. This includes our belief in nonviolence, but
also extends far beyond that. May God
direct us in this work of reconciliation as we go from here this morning.
Amen
[1] On
Fire for Christ: stories of Anabaptist martyers by Dave & Neta Jackson
pg. 159-168 & The Martyr’s Mirror Thieleman J. van Braght pgs.
894-896
[2] “What is
an Anabaptist Christian” Palmer Becker pg. 13-15
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