What do Anabaptists Value? Does it Matter? (Part 3 of 4)

Well, good evening to everyone. It's good to be with you again. If you've never seen one of these, these are metronomes. They're used for keeping time. And I have them all set for the same frequency. So all five of these—I forget exactly what the frequency is—160, 70 beats per second or per minute.

Now, if we were to start all of these, even though they're set for the same frequency, and if we set the—if we had started them all at the same time, they still wouldn't be exactly the same.

And you can see that a bit. And yet, as we wait, they begin to get closer and closer into synchronization.

But if we were to take them off,

it's not long before they're out of sync, even though supposedly they're at the same frequency.

And in this case, we have one rogue element that you'll notice is exactly opposite the other four. And sometimes it's helpful if we take the rogue, remove him from the situation, and then reinstate him.

He still has an influence that needs to get worked out a little bit, perhaps.

But when they're allowed to influence each other, when we place them on the two cans, the energy is able to pass back and forth, and it actually keeps them in sync.

Now, perhaps with that illustration, you can guess what the emphases that we're going to think together about this evening. We have been considering five Anabaptist emphases or dishes that we're serving up. And the first one that we looked at last evening was the emphasis or the value of devotion.

For this session, I'm thinking of a word that starts with a B. And in some ways, this emphasis contrasts with the emphasis that we had last evening on devotion. And we're going to have to wrestle with how they fit together a bit.

Now, a clue to the emphasis that I'm thinking of, you may have heard someone say something like this: that I like Jesus, but not his followers.

That's a clue to the value that I'm thinking of this evening. Here's another clue. And it's in the form of a question: Is the church a local body of believers? Is the church given to aid the individual Christian in his maturity?

Or is the individual to participate in the maturing of the body of Christ? You follow the question there. Now, Lord, what should be the emphasis? What is the focus of God's work in the world? Is it on the individual believer, or is it in his body, the church?

See, is the church merely a good idea, a valuable resource, an aid to help individual believers reach maturity? And so when the church is helpful, and when the preaching is good, and when the fellowship is enjoyable, then great. But then when it ceases to be quite so good, well, then it's time to find another body that does provide that.

See, the question here is, as we're wrestling with the church and the individual, we could say these are paired ideas.

Which is first and which is second?

We could ask the same question a different way. And it would look like this: What is the smallest unit of sustainable life in the kingdom of God?

And to help us get on board with that question, let's just think about what's the smallest unit of sustainable life physically. Is it the cell? If I were to scratch some skin cells off and lay them here on the table, it wouldn't take long before—well, they're not going to stay alive.

So that's not the smallest unit of sustainable life. Well, maybe it's tissues. Maybe if I cut a hunk of meat out and laid it up here, is that the smallest unit of sustainable life physically? And of course, the answer is no.

Well, maybe it would be an organ. But once again, we know if we would take a heart that's still pumping but cut it out and place it here, that too would not continue to survive and exist. It's not the smallest unit of sustainable life. No, it's the organism. That's the smallest unit of sustainable life. So the question here would be, what is the smallest unit of sustainable life in the kingdom of God?

Is it the individual? Is it the church?

Is it the community of believers, or is it the individual believer?

Now, I've included a quote here in your notes. This is from an evangelical, James Sire, who has written extensively on worldviews and a variety of other things. And he says this in his studies of the church today. He says, "Whether Catholic, evangelical, mainline, liberal, or conservative, Christians"—and I suspect—I mean, he's given a pretty nice comprehensive list here of groups.

He's basically saying Christians today see themselves as individuals first and communities second. So he's saying the church today has answered our question by saying that the first thing is the individual believer, and the second thing is the church.

Historically, the Anabaptist answer—and I would say the early church answer—to this question is different than that.

Anabaptists emphasize brotherhood. And that is our word for this session. Anabaptism understands that the focus of God's work on the earth is the body of Christ, the church. Instead of the church existing as a resource for the individual believer, the individual is intended to be a part of Christ's body.

And that is the unit of life in the kingdom of God. Anabaptists emphasize brotherhood. For a text, we could turn to Matthew 16. As we move toward the climax of Jesus' life on earth, he reveals himself as Christ, as Messiah, as King. And when Peter acknowledges this, Jesus blesses him. Jesus answers and says, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." And for 2,000 years, Jesus has been keeping this promise to build his church. This is his agenda.

This is what he is up to in the world. The church, the body of Christ, the brotherhood is at the center of God's redemptive work.

If we want to know what God is up to in the world, we don't look to the places of political power or the places of economic power or the hotspots in the world. We look to the local church to see what God's up to.

See, we could say it this way: that the good news of Jesus Christ is not primarily about you or about me. The grand story of God—and it is a grand story—does not revolve around you or I. It revolves around Christ and the body of Christ, the church.

And gloriously, we have an opportunity to participate in his grand story as we align with the brotherhood.

I find that as I engage with people and as I think about my own life and so on, there's three questions that it seems like all of us are trying to meaningfully answer. And these are rather personal questions. They're individual questions. They're questions of identity. Who am I really?

They're questions of purpose. What does my life mean? Why have I shown up on the planet? And there's questions about who can I belong to? Who can I trust? Who can I feel like has my back? And notice, these are all I question. These are individual questions. And what's ironic is that the answer to these individual questions is that in the brotherhood, we're able to find those answers best.

You show me a person that is deeply connected to other followers of Christ, and I'll show you someone who has a better idea of who they are, has a deep sense of belonging, and whose life is meaningful, is purposeful.

So we could say that Anabaptists emphasize brotherhood, and that includes this idea that we find belonging, identity, and purpose or meaning by committing to the local church.

For another text, I'd like to consider Philippians for a moment. And we're reading here in Paul, and he says, "If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy."

And this brings us back to last evening and our talk about devotion. He's saying, "Are you devoted? And in that devotion, are you experiencing the Lord in your quiet time, in your praying, in your reading? Are you experiencing the Lord?" And he says, "If so, then complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." That individual devotion is intended to bring us into closer connection with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

He goes on, "Do nothing from selfish ambition, the thought that my agenda is more important than your agenda. Do nothing from that. Do nothing from conceit." The thought that not only is my agenda more important than your agenda, but that I'm more important than you says, "Do nothing from those kinds of considerations." Instead, we are to develop a mindset that says, "It's the group. It's the body. It's the church that is to be the focus of my life, not my own." But in humility, he makes it clear, "In humility can count others more significant than yourself." It seems as if we have the option to invest our life in one of two ways: in myself or in others.

And Paul is calling us to realize that the payout is much greater when we invest in others. "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." And when we do this, that's brotherhood.

Now, two quick analogies. A couple of years ago, my wife and I were walking along a trail in southern Oregon. It's along the Rogue River. And we noticed this stump and noticed how it's completely grown over with bark on the top.

And we found that fascinating. And then there was a sign close by that said that this stump, before it was cut, the roots before the tree was cut, the roots had intertwined with the tree that you see there in the background.

And so it continued to live because of its connection with that other tree. And sometimes that's exactly what can feel like or even is what happens to us in life. We get cut off. And it's the life of the brotherhood that continues to sustain us. Or in a similar fashion, if you ever get a chance, I encourage you to visit Boone Hall Plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. And if nothing else, drive through this avenue of oaks that was planted years before the Declaration of Independence was signed.

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo came through Charleston and right up through Boone Hall Plantation. But those trees continued to stand while almost all other trees in the area were devastated. And the reason why, according to those who study this, is that the roots of these trees have intertwined. And it gave a tremendous amount of strength to sustain them through the hurricane. And they also say that it's a way they pass nutrients and water to each other along that route. Now, they warn, though, it's also a way that toxins can pass and diseases can pass from one tree to another as well.

Brotherhood, there's something about it that we're attracted to the benefits of brotherhood. There's something that just kind of about belonging to a community that has its own logic. And yet, the cost of brotherhood can be so high that many of us are never willing to pay that cost.

In 2009, Sebastian Junger, a journalist, asked to spend the summer with American troops in Afghanistan. And it was a valley. It was a remote valley in which there was intense fighting that summer. And this journalist described the conditions. He said they lived in these plywood beehuts, sandbags all around them. There were dirt bunkers, no running water. He said they stayed in their same clothes for a month.

No phones, no internet, no cooked food. And he said the boredom was excruciating. He said you had long periods of nothing happening, and then you'd have these periods of intense fighting in which almost always someone would be killed. He tells about how that on one occasion, he was just so bored. "What do I do?" And he's just leaning there against a sandbag. And all of a sudden, he feels something on his cheek.

And then he hears the machine gun. He said it was probably a mile away, but it only missed him by about three inches. And he said everybody had stories like that. By the end of the month, he said everybody had holes in their uniform, and everyone had witnessed a death just right next to them. He said it was a terrible time. He comes back from that experience. He comes to the States. And one evening, he's at a meeting, a party, or something, and he sees one of the men that was one of the military men that was there in that valley. And he went up to him and introduced himself. And he said, "I was there with you."

And he said, "I have a question for you. Is there anything?" It was terrible. "Was there anything that you missed from that experience?" And he said, without a heart a thing, the guy said, "Oh, yeah." He said, "I miss almost everything."

And Junger was just surprised. "What does he mean?" He said, "I know he didn't miss the killing. And I know he didn't miss almost being killed. And I know he didn't miss seeing his buddies killed. And I know he didn't miss the, I mean, the horrible food conditions and the weather." He said, "What did he mean?" And he said, "So I started going to other men who had been there. I'd look up where they were. And I'd go to them and I'd ask them, 'Is there anything that you miss from that?' And they'd say, 'Oh, yeah. I miss almost everything.' And he'd say, 'Help me understand.' And he said, the word that kept coming through over and over again was, 'We missed brotherhood.'" He defined it this way: a mutual agreement that you'll put the welfare of the group above your own.

He said these soldiers would say things like, "I loved those men in my group more than I loved myself, and I didn't even like them."

Brotherhood, they were experiencing something because of their shared experience and commitment that is to be a component of what the church is to be.

And when we even talk about it, even in that setting, I suspect we can all feel a bit of, "Yeah, I do. I want to belong to something like that where I want to sense that there's other people that have my back, other people that are going to put themselves on their line for me." We want that. We deeply want it.

And it's this kind of brotherhood, this intention, the reality of putting the welfare of my brother above my own that Jesus invites us to in his church. And it's what Paul was talking about there in Philippians 2. And then Junger went on to describe the soldiers' lives back here in the States.

And they said, "Back here, you don't know who you can count on." They said, "You don't know who loves you, and that's terrifying." And compared to the kind of alienation that we're experiencing here, even with our families and whatever, they said, "War is easy.

We miss it all."

These men paid a tremendous price for the brotherhood that they experienced. It was a price they wouldn't have paid if they wouldn't have been made to do it.

There is a price to pay for the kind of belonging, the kind of care, the kind of benefits that God intends for us in brotherhood. But the cost is high. And I want to think with you about those costs.

The reason I think that more of us don't experience even what these soldiers experienced is because of an unwillingness to pay the cost. So what are some of them? The cost of brotherhood means staying engaged with my brothers and sisters when everything in me wants to escape, wants to move on. It means pushing through the disappointments in the people around me. And there will be disappointments.

It means pursuing, yes, pursuing the interests of people that I wouldn't have chosen to be in this church if I was selecting them. And it means loving and pursuing their interests even though I don't particularly like them.

It means admitting that I could be wrong. And that's a cost, folks. That's not easy to do. It means supporting the group when a decision is made that I wouldn't have made if it was up to me.

It means prioritizing the opportunities that I have to be with the brotherhood. There's a cost here. This doesn't just happen.

We have to spend time together if we're going to realize brotherhood. And so say it again. It's spending a lot of time together when I have some of my own things I'd rather be doing.

It means submission to a common creed, common values, common practices, and common culture, not all of which I would choose if I was selecting them.

And many of these costs so far can feel like negative things where we are giving up stuff. But there's also a positive cost to brotherhood. And I'd like to mention two of those. It means bringing our best thinking, our best ideas, our greatest creativity to bear for the good of the brotherhood and not just for our businesses or families.

A lot of us have a tremendous amount of creativity and capacity for innovation and so on. And we can just turn that into the pursuits of maybe the occupation that I'm involved in or my specific family and never bring those kinds of things to the brotherhood. But that's a cost of brotherhood as well. And it also means that I develop, I work to become the kind of person that has something to offer, something to benefit the group that I'm with. That's how strong brotherhoods develop.

Brotherhood involves a commitment to stay connected to the church.

Period. Valuing the body is not a temporary commitment. It's as long as my needs are being met or as long as I don't have better options. I think it's a bit our commitment to our churches is a bit more like marriage. I didn't say it is the same as marriage, but it's in that direction. It's through sickness and health, through times of joy, but especially in the difficult times.

When everything in me is screaming to leave, that's the time that I most need to stay for my own good.

That's how brotherhood is built. And we can't have the benefits of brotherhood without paying the cost. Early in our marriage, Cynthia and I, we really wanted to leave our congregation. And we were plotting our exit strategy. The meeting house for our congregation is pictured here.

It was a continuation. Our dissatisfaction was a continuation of that focus that I described last evening of majoring on the bathwater.

And so after a number of years here, we headed back to I had started college before our marriage. And then we headed back to finish up some of that work. And our intention was to from there, we would then move on to some other congregation, some other church. But somewhere along the line, I think the Lord was gracious to us. And it began to dawn on both of us that if we had treated our marriage, if we had treated each other the way we were treating our church, that we probably would have been divorced by that time. In other words, if we had majored on the bathwater in each other, it would have led to separation.

Were there disagreements between Cynthia and I? Yes, there were. Were there disappointments in each other? There were. There were quite a few things we discovered after we were married that we did not know before that were disappointing.

So there were disappointments. There were problems. But because we were committed to each other, we didn't focus on those things. We did not major on the bathwater. We chose to focus on what was good in each other. And what we felt God calling us to in this time was to bring the same attitude toward our church.

And so we went back to Barnwell after college. And we were there for a number of years. And when the Lord did call us to Faith Builders, we found it extremely difficult to leave. And it wasn't that the problems that we had identified earlier were solved necessarily, but God had given us a new set of eyes to see grace that was present there in our congregation.

Now, I want to say I believe there is a time to leave.

But it's generally when we're willing to stay that we can see with enough clarity to make godly and wise choices about leaving.

And it's a platform of gratitude for the people that I'm a part of that have invested in me, that have fellowshipped, and so on. It's a platform of gratitude for that that gives us the best perspective for understanding any bathwater that might be present in that setting.

Changing churches every several years will not build brotherhood. It will not build individual maturity either.

A writer in Christianity today captured this emphasis very well. And I'd like to quote from him. He says, "The pokey local church in suburbia," and I love that line. Does it ever feel like you're part of a pokey local church? "The pokey local church is still the most fertile environment for spiritual development.

Genuine spiritual progress doesn't happen without a long-term attachment." Good words to underline. A long-term attachment to a pokey local church. The maddening frustration that prompts someone to leave one church for another may be the precise thing that holds great potential for spiritual progress if one stays.

Recently, I was introduced to Wallace Stegner, who writes about the kinds of people that settled the United States. And he says, "You can basically put all the Americans into two categories, at least the ones from 100 years ago." And he calls the one group Boomers and the other one Stickers.

And he says, "The Boomers are the kind that would come in, extract any of the resources from a particular region, whether it was the animal skins or the oil or the gold. They were the Boomers. They would come in, extract the goods, and leave." So the other types of people were the Stickers. So those are the kind that would come in. They would settle down. They would invest over time. They stayed current even when all the resources were gone and when it wasn't any fun to be there anymore.

And he talks about them coming to love deeply lived in places.

Deeply lived in places. And he talked about how the flourishing lives that could develop when the Stickers would stick. The church, the brotherhood, is built by Stickers, not by Boomers, not the ones that come in to extract what good there might be, and then they're off to the next gold mine.

Our German forefathers used the word Gelassenheit to describe the posture necessary for brotherhood to flourish: yieldedness, yieldedness to God and His will, surrender to Him, the abandonment to Him, readiness to suffer for the sake of God, all part of the concepts embodied here in this word. And it also includes the resulting peace and calmness of mind that comes from this. And I'm going to indulge with a picture here of my father with one of my grandsons because this is a picture that always just captures for me the idea of the submission, the giving in, the surrender, and the kind of peace and care and belonging that comes with that. Anabaptists emphasize brotherhood. But what are the practices?

What are the things that we do regularly that maybe help to keep this an emphasis that's alive for us? And I'm going to suggest three. The first is visiting after the service. For the Anabaptist churches I've experienced, it's not unusual to still be together 30 minutes or 45 or an hour after the service has ended.

The after-service can sometimes be as long as the service. It's a simple practice, just talking with each other. We repeat weekly, several times a week, that shapes a deep love and enjoyment of the brotherhood. A second practice that nurtures this value is congregational singing.

And in congregational singing, we contribute as equals. And the result, though, is more than the sum of the individuals. It does not emphasize those who are musically skilled or that play instruments. What it does cultivate, though, is brotherhood. It not only is a picture of brotherhood, but the practice itself actually helps to nurture the reality.

And the third is foot washing. When we wash each other's feet, we do so as equals, not as leaders or followers, rich or poor, black or white. We're mutually bowing to each other. We're enacting submission with our bodies, which is at the heart of a flourishing brotherhood. So we emphasize brotherhood. However, before we end our reflections here, I want to make a few observations. First, while brotherhood is an emphasis, we have felt the I would say many. I can't speak for you so much, but many of the churches that I've been in have felt the tremendous conforming influence of the individualism in our age.

And it seems that brotherhood is becoming less of an emphasis. It doesn't seem we spend as much time together as we did years ago. We don't drop in on each other as much. We have enough money and tools and equipment and vehicles that we don't need to borrow from each other or work together as much as we did. We're becoming much more diverse by necessity. We're becoming much more diverse in the vocations we pursue. And so it takes more work to cultivate the same level of camaraderie as when we all worked on the farm.

Social media holds out the promise of many friendships out there in ways that reduce the time and energy given to the people right here in my brotherhood. Every generation has its challenges. And I think one of yours and mine is to find new ways to once again commit to authentic brotherhood.

If it's going to remain a value, an emphasis, an actual reality among us, we must creatively, imaginatively recommit to meeting together for worship, for preaching, for teaching, but also for fellowship meals, for Sunday afternoon walks, for drive-ins, for work projects, for multi-family outings.

And now a second observation.

An emphasis on the church raises the question of our biological families. And here again, we have another first and second, perhaps. Is the biological family or the church family primary in the kingdom of God? And Anabaptism claims it's the church and points to passages like Matthew 10:34, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

John Roth, the historian, writes this, "Perhaps the most distinctive Mennonite contribution to the topic of marriage and singleness is the conviction that the church, not our biological relatives, is our first family."

What is a picture that captures this emphasis? You're going to have to use your imagination here because I've chosen an arch. Let me explain why. And I'm going to use the St. Louis arch as an example here. This particular kind of arch has the same width at its base as it does height. So it's 630 feet wide, 630 feet tall. It's the tallest monument in the United States. Incredibly strong. Can you imagine building a structure with that kind of size? And though the architects designed it to withstand everything they could imagine for the next thousand years, I mean, that's what it's predicted to be able to last.

There's more stainless steel in that project than in any one project in history. And sometimes architects describe an arch in terms of two uprights that they say each upright is strong. You think of pillars, two pillars, that each one is strong in its own right.

But that if you want to create an even stronger structure, and this may be counterintuitive, but they said, "You have those two structures come together and joined in a" well, here in Pennsylvania, we call it a keystone, wouldn't we? Joined in a keystone or in the cathedrals. They talk about it as the boss.

And they say, "What you create is a structure that is stronger than the two original uprights and, in addition, is one of the most beautiful structures we know."

We are created as individuals to fall together in submission to Christ, the keystone, the boss, and fall to each other. And the resulting organism, the church, has God-ordained strength to survive the tsunamis of our times. Anabaptists emphasize brotherhood.

We're considering five words that describe the Anabaptist worldview, its distinctive beliefs and values. And so far, we've looked at devotion and brotherhood. And in this session, I would like to consider one of the S's. So it's a word that describes an Anabaptist value, and it starts with an S. And the word is not really.

But in order to introduce the S word, I want to talk about salmon. Why is it that salmon swim upstream? A fascinating question and one, apparently, that we still don't completely understand. But we do know that early in their life, salmon leave their freshwater homes and travel out into the ocean. Here's one of the pathways for salmon on the West Coast. And then after several years, they return. They readapt to freshwater and find their home place. And that's part of that swimming upstream.

They pass waterfalls. John Webb, a biologist, says that most fish, many of them, spawn within five miles of where they grew up. How can this happen? And at this point, there's two primary answers to this. The one is that it seems that the salmon actually have some kind of magneto GPS in their brains that actually can orient them, at least in the direction of home.

But that's not precise enough. And they think that combined with the sense of smell that salmon have is what allows them to get as close as they do. So you think of it this way, that their home had a distinctive odor, and every home does have a distinctive odor, and that that odor is made up of trillions and trillions of molecules. And those molecules also are distributed downstream and out into the ocean and so on. But as the further they get from home, the less the concentration is.

And then it seems like when the salmon actually get oriented in the right direction, that something of their sense of smell is what allows them to be they can move toward greater and greater concentration of that smell, and it takes them home.

And so the reason they're swimming upstream is not because they just have some kind of an upstream bent to them. It's because they want to go home, and that's the way you get there.

And there's this home odor that's drawing them in that direction, and they're willing to move that direction even though there are obstacles in the way.

I find

this to be a compelling picture of the gospel because for the believer, Christ is our - can we say it this way? - our home odor. He's that desirable reality that we want to move toward.

A focus on Christ then gives us direction, a positive vision for who it is we're to become and what we are to do and be in this world. So maybe we could say one of the Anabaptist emphases is being Christ-centered.

But that doesn't start with an S, does it? So I'm looking for another word. Early Anabaptism had a German expression for this, Nachfolge Christi, following Christ.

But Nachfolge Christi doesn't start with an S either. So I guess that's not the emphasis or the word I've chosen. Clearly, Anabaptism is Christ-centered, and it describes the gospel in terms of following Jesus. It seeks to read the Bible through the lens of the teachings and life of Christ. It understands the goal of life to love Christ and to become like Him.

So why not use one of those words? Well, the reason I'm looking for another word is because, according to one poll, a Gallup poll, 84% of Americans believe Jesus is God, and 66% of Americans claim to be committed to Jesus Christ. Now, I find these numbers difficult to believe.

So if I'm getting this right, a majority of people in our culture today say they're Christ-centered to one degree or another. So I'm looking at a word that maybe would capture what we would mean when we say Christ-centered.

I'm also looking for another word because I read in Ron Seider's scandal, The Evangelical Conscience, that evangelical Christians today are likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general. This is not a Gallup poll anymore.

This is not just general Americans. This is focused in on evangelical Christianity, a group that would certainly claim to be Christ-focused. And this is the way, at least this one writer describes them. He says, "The divorce is more common among born-again Christians than in the general American population. Only 6% of evangelicals tithe, and white evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race."

Is this consistent with being Christ-centered? Sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their non-evangelical peers. Percentage of Christian men involved in pornography is not much different than that of the unsaved. Born-again Christians spend seven times more hours each week in front of their televisions, and they spend in Bible-reading, prayer, and worship. He concludes by saying, "Every day, the church is becoming more like the world it allegedly seeks to change." And then these words, "The cultural captivity of Christianity in the West is nearly complete."

This is the tsunami. And Seider is admitting that the church has basically been overwhelmed, at least the evangelical church. I would suggest that in this case, what Western Christianity has done is embrace at least the language of being Christ-focused, but they're not keeping a necessary second thing.

So is the Anabaptist emphasis on Christ any different than other expressions of Christianity? I believe so, and that's why I'm looking for another word. Let me turn to Colossians 3, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth." Notice that Paul is saying, "If Christ is your home odor, there is going to be some associated lifestyle implications for that."

We go on, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, and then put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell on you richly. Whatever you do and word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." And so Paul gives us these two lists. One is, if Jesus is really central, it means you're not going to be doing this, and it means you are going to be doing this.

There's both a negative and a positive vision. You're going to be, yes, jumping waterfalls. There's a bunch of things that come when Christ is your home odor.

And it's this other set of things that I'm suggesting, this willingness to go against maybe the cultural norms. I'm calling the countercultural aspect of this. So we are Christ-centered. We're called to be Christ-centered. But the implications of that is that we will also then be countercultural.

And I'm suggesting this is the first and second thing: Christ-centered, countercultural.

Now, to actually get to the word, let's go to 2 Corinthians 6. What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? And we have a series of rhetorical questions here from Paul. What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?

And all of these, he's assuming we've answered. We've answered these questions. And then he goes, "Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them," says the Lord, "and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you. I'll be a father to you. You shall be sons and daughters to me," says the Lord Almighty.

Anabaptists emphasize separation. Now, I chose this word. I'll admit it was not the word I particularly wanted to choose. And it's because over the years, it's accumulated some baggage, some negative baggage with us. But the more I was thinking about this and who we are as a people and how we understand the gospel and so on, I realized it's a really good word. It's a word that deserves to be resuscitated if that's what's needed.

And the reason it's a good word is because it captures both sides of this equation. The first thing, Christ-centered. You see, it's separation to Christ to begin with, separated to Christ. Christ is our home odor. But because we're separated to Christ, there will also be a separation from evil.

Christ followers will be out of sync with the dominant culture. That's the swimming upstream. Anabaptists emphasize that conformity to Christ will be evidenced by a distinctiveness from those who are not following Christ. When we say yes to Jesus, we're saying no to all other lords.

And I would suggest that in light of contemporary Christianity, it seems it's vital to emphasize both the separated to and the separated from nature of Christianity and not just one or the other. Both of these need to be held together. This is a first and second thing: separated to Christ, separated from evil.

I would suggest that many Christian groups are trying to keep first things first, but they haven't kept second things. Rob Dreher, an evangelical, says it this way, "A church that looks and talks and sounds just like the world has no reason to exist."

And he also wrote that Christians often talk about reaching the culture without realizing that having no distinct Christian culture of their own, they've been co-opted by the secular culture they wish to evangelize.

We're not talking about being different for different sake here. That would be making the second thing first. We're talking about being different for Christ's sake. That's keeping first things first. Dan Ziegler asked this question, "Why is it that when we Anabaptists have historically read the Bible, we come to the conclusion that Christians are not to fight in the military, swear oaths, remarry while a spouse is still living, not to sue another person, to expect to suffer for their faith, to prioritize service to the poor, practice church discipline, to wear head covering if a woman, reject jewelry, wear modest, simple, non-conformed attire, practice a simple, plain lifestyle, practice an emphasis on community and the brotherhood, avoid positions of corporate or political power, practice separation from media and many forms of entertainment, to understand that how a Christian lives their life is inseparable from their confession of faith, to focus on the separation of the kingdoms of this world from the kingdom of God, etc."

And he says, "Perhaps a few Christian groups subscribe to some of the above lists. But to my knowledge, this package is rather unique to us Anabaptists." And it's because there's an emphasis both on following Jesus and because we're following Jesus that causes us to take seriously the countercultural nature of His call on our lives.

For a picture, we emphasize separation, following Jesus, and that following Jesus will make us stand out. It's an impulse that's at the heart of the Anabaptist vision. We expect to be different. We expect that following Jesus is going to make us stand out.

What picture helps to capture that impulse, this impulse that followers of Christ are going to be pilgrims of strangers rather than the moral majority? And I've chosen one of the many etchings found in the martyr's mirror, a picture of a martyr.

From its beginning, we've understood that the choice to follow Jesus may mean death.

And these words from one of the songs in the Osmond from George Wagner, "He who would follow Christ in life must scorn the world's insult and strife." Notice that emphasis on following Jesus. If He's our home odor, we must scorn the world's insult and strife, bear His cross each day, for this alone leads to the throne. Christ is the only way.

The same impulse, well, we could say that while dying for Christ is maybe the most dramatic implication of following Him, the same impulse that makes a martyr is seen in other significant ways throughout our history. 500 years ago, it was the insistence that the church and government should be separate. 150 years ago, it was the avoidance of slavery.

Today, it includes an insistence on loving our enemies and not participating in killing them in warfare.

But what practices help to shape a willingness to be different because we're following Jesus? Why is it that Mennonites are okay, in general, with being different from everyone else? And I know there's exceptions to this. And for some of us, our oddness can be a real struggle.

But what practices cultivate this fundamental mindset of separation to Christ and from evil? And I will offer two. The first is this practice of the purveying. And I'd be quick to say, men are men identifying with our women in this practice.

Since few women today veil their hair, Mennonite women stick out. We feel that difference from the general culture. In the home that I grew up in, our family went to a lot of places together. And I saw my dad and my two older brothers identifying with my mom and my sister without shame, without embarrassment. We were a family. This is who we were.

And I think that that helped to nurture in me this unconscious acceptance that obedience to Christ's words are going to make us different. And that's okay. It's good.

Willingness to be different in maybe some smaller things nurtures a capacity to swim against the moral currents of the age. A second practice that nurtures this same thing is church discipline. And by church discipline, I mean the measures that a congregation takes to confront and correct sin in the life of a follower of Christ.

This is a practice that is seldom a part of churches today. But it used not to be that way.

A quote from a Southern Baptist, Albert Moller, he says, "The decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church."

No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association. Listen to this language here. The church is a voluntary association of autonomous members, members that do not have responsibility for each other, with minimal moral accountability to God, much less to each other.

I know in a local church there in our area, the pastor preaches some very good sermons. And he will say that sexual relations outside of traditional marriage is sin. But they ignore well-known cases of that in the church.

Winfield Fretz writes, "If the church no longer conceives of itself as a voluntary disciplined body of followers of Christ, it will have lost its reason for existence." Now, I bring up this practice of church discipline here because the fact that it's still a part of our church life indicates that we take seriously the understanding that following Jesus is going to lead to a different way of life and that as a brotherhood, as a community, we're responsible for helping each other to walk that path.

Anabaptists emphasize separation.

G.K. Chesterton is famous for saying that a dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. And I would like to add to that a little bit and say a dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing and a counter-community of considerable strength can go against it. We need to not just be lone salmon. We need a community to be moving toward Christ together. And so maybe to sum up everything we've been talking about in these last three sessions, we could say it this way: a dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing. That living thing, that's devotion.