Jesus is Our Center
Teachers’ Notes
When we moved from Milan to Ann Arbor, I knew it was going to affect the church in profound ways. Because Jesus calls us to bring the gospel to every nook & cranny of creation, to translate this good news so its goodness is heard by the people in our own community.
What I didn’t realize is how much the challenge of “humbly bearing the transforming presence of Jesus into the heart of the Ann Arbor area” would press us into Jesus of Nazareth in new ways.
Here in the Ann Arbor area, where there is a lot of cynicism about religion in general, and the Christian one in particular, we are properly & profitably forced to “separate the wheat from the chaff” of our unexamined assumptions. To discern what’s truly sacred from what’s just a sacred cow.
The Jesus brand has gotten hijacked in recent years. A classic case of trademark infringement. The Jesus brand has somehow been reframed as bad news instead of good news.
Jesus wants his religion back so it can be good news for the world again. So we can be a church for the people we love who are wondering if there is a home for them with God… our sons & daughters, brothers & sisters, co-workers, people all around us.
The time leading to the celebration of Easter’s empty tomb is sacred time. As Jesus spent forty days in the desert to focus his Spirit-infused vision on the mission set before him, it’s time for us to do the same.
After seven years, the critical pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place: it’s time to wrap words around it, commend it to prayer, and invest ourselves with fresh conviction & passion in the task set before us….
Over four sermons, I will speak to our four core values: Jesus is our center; The gospel is our message; The Bible is our book; Love is our aim. Each to be understood in light of our mission to “humbly bear the transforming presence of Jesus into the heart of the Ann Arbor area. ”
Today we begin, where I hope we will always begin, and when all is said and done, where we will always end: Jesus is our Center.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. (Mt. 13:44)
Jesus himself is the treasure hidden in the field: “Christ, in whom are hidden all treasures…” (Col. 2: 2-3)
Jesus isn’t some pure spirit being who floats down from above; he’s treasure in a field. He comes imbedded in the spit & mud of humanity–culture, religion and all the mess that goes wherever humans do.
Where does this image of a yearning-searcher kneeling in dirt over treasure come from? Gen 2:7: God longing for a little human company kneels down in the garden, breathes spirit-life into the first human, the first divine-human encounter….not in a realm of pure spirit but in an earthy field. This is the same image invoked by Jesus parable of the man who finds treasure hidden in a field.
We humans were God’s treasure hidden in the field. When we spoiled the treasure—soiled the image of God in us—God went and sold all he had, gave his only Son, who set aside his divine prerogatives to buy the field and gain us back.
Jesus is our Center: the treasure hidden in the field of religion.
Jesus is our shared treasure. We may not agree about much, but if Jesus is our shared treasure, the center will hold.
Jesus is our only treasure, ultimately. Because all that’s true and beautiful and valuable finds a home in him. That’s why the man who found it hidden in a field, gladly liquidated his other assets to gain it.
This parable isn’t just the key to our heart’s devotion. It’s strategic for our mission! In case you haven’t noticed Christianity has suffered a lot of bad press lately and much of it we’ve brought on ourselves.
Much of American Christianity has crawled into bed with the powers & principalities of this world wearing our Jesus pajamas. In the process, we’ve sullied the Jesus brand. As a result the treasure buried in the field is even harder to find! But hiding the treasure is not our job!
We need to say it clearly and live it deeply: Jesus is our Center. For all the bad press, though, even those who are completely turned off by American Christianity still have a soft spot in their hearts for Jesus of Nazareth. He remains a magnetic presence that draws rather than repels those with a God shaped hole in their hearts.
Which brings us to a strategic piece of the puzzle: to humbly bear the transforming presence of Jesus into the heart of the Ann Arbor area, we need to consciously be what Vineyard Churches have always aimed to be: centered set, not bounded set churches. Jesus himself being the treasure of the kingdom at the Center.
The bounded set approach draws a circle that defines a clear boundary; it’s hard to get in, hard to get out. The boundary may be a required set of beliefs or a required set of moral behaviors or a required ethnicity. Believe the whole package, behave accordingly, and then you belong. That’s the bounded set approach.
I haven’t haven’t met a church taking the bounded approach church yet who didn’t cherry pick a few beliefs or behaviors to focus attention on, ignoring the rest. Usually the sins de jour of the sexual variety are the ones that get the attention. Never things like greed and neglect of the poor. It’s called sin-sorting. And it offends the holy God because it’s fake holiness; it’s holiness on paper only; it’s a short cut approach to making a holy nation.
Furthermore, the bounded set approach requires pilgrims to swallow the package whole before they can belong. When Nancy & I were brand new Christians, we tried to join a church: the pastor gave us a detailed statement of faith that included this statement: God created some to be saved, others to be damned.
[Don’t get me wrong: I believe in a coming judgment. We are warned there will be hell to pay. I just think we know less about it than we pretend, since the judging part is not in our gift-mix or job description.]
The particular view of hell in that statement–that God created some people expressly for it–wasn’t even the problem. The problem was this: as brand new pilgrims, it wasn’t helpful for us to be told we had to swallow a belief package whole before we could belong to the Jesus community. We came to church because we were drawn to Jesus.
What we needed was a church that said, Jesus is our Center; we’re all pilgrims from many different points of origin. The question isn’t how close you are or how far away…But which way are you facing? Are you willing to take one step closer to knowing?
People need to belong first–just as Jesus said to first disciples simply “follow me” without requiring a sworn allegiance to a statement of faith–then, as we take one step closer, then another, over time what we believe becomes clearer, and that belief over time shapes the way we behave. Belong-Believe-Behave.
That’s a centered-set approach: It’s not saying belief doesn’t matter or behavior doesn’t matter. I’m thankful that I have relationship with fellow pilgrims who are willing to speak the truth in love to me. As I have spoken the truth in love to others.
A centered set approach says: Jesus is Our Center and you’re invited to join us on that pilgrimage from wherever it is you happen to find yourself; you’re invited to draw closer to Him together with us.
But lets make something else clear: We’re not trying to run away from the church to form some churchless Christianity. We are called to believe in the church because Jesus does.
Jesus is stuck with his bride and so are we! Her history–good & bad–is our history. Her challenges, ours challenges. Her future, our future.
But when I say “the church” I mean the whole church, as this “quadrant of Christianity” graphic by Phyllis Tickle demonstrates…
The Liturgical part: Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox; much of the history of the church is here; beautiful forms of worship are here; prayer practices that empowered the mystics are here.
The Social Justice part: Quakers, peace churches, African American Churches that gave rise to the civil rights movement; the people who have a passion for justice to roll down and transform human society…
The Evangelical part: the Billy Graham & Rick Warren Christians who love the gospel, taking it to every nation believing it is the power of God for salvation.
The Pentecostal part: those who open wide to the power of the Holy Spirit, pray for the sick, believe in miracles.
[Corner Dwellers in each of these quadrants, those who say, “We’ve got a corner on the truth…Our way or the highway” are missing out. They are so busy guarding the boundaries, they’ve forgotten about the Center.]
The dynamic of the Spirit over the centuries–the momentum stronger than ever today–is toward the Center, the Center being Jesus.
As we get closer to the center, the treasures of each quadrant get more concentrated. As we get closer to the center, we discover new-to-us treasures from the different quadrants.
Rich Nathan, pastor of the Columbus Vineyard did a devotional at our recent Vineyard National Board meeting. He referenced what New Testament scholars have been noting for years: that the New Testament includes many portions that were once hymns in the early Jesus movement.
Like the beginning of John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.” That whole opening section was probably a hymn in the early church. Similar sections are found in many other places.
It seems that virtually all the hymns are Jesus hymns. When the early church turned to face the Center, they couldn’t help but fall to their knees and burst into song!
It’s when we get off our knees, and forget the music, and try to nail this sucker down that we get all confused, uptight, angry, out of sorts.
Movie directors know how important a “reaction shot” is to tell the story of what’s going on. A reaction shot, is a shot, not of the thing itself, but of someone responding to the thing itself.
Jodie Foster in the movie Contact was sent in a spacecraft to another planet outside our solar system. The director doesn’t show the other world first; he shows Jodie Foster reacting to the planet as she arrives: her eyes wide open, filled with tears, jaw dropped, gaping, “I had no idea, I had no idea!”
God is the director of the love story of God in search of humanity. The church is the reaction shot, Jodie Foster reacting to the treasure hidden in the field.
We’re just now coming out of a 500 year binge with rationalism. Rationalism was a philosophical movement that did a lot of distrusting the heart and trusting the head exclusively. In matters of faith, under the influence of rationalism, we majored in what the head does best: asserting, arguing, making the case, defining, delineating; at expense of the kneeling and singing.
(We know we’re coming off this particular drunk because we’re finally falling off the other side of the horse….and in many parts of the church clear thinking is viewed as “noting but dry intellectualism”; still, our instincts tend toward the head, the head, the head, as we’re just relearning the ways of the heart.)
So that’s been the reaction shot the director has had available to him: His people drawing lines in the sand, arguing over the correct analysis of the treasure. Instead of dropping to our knees, bursting into song
Those on outside of faith looking looking in see a bunch of uptight, angry, arguing people making their case. And in droves they are walking away saying, “You may have won the argument, but you’ve lost my heart!” [In the recent Pew Survey, the proportion of people who claim no religious affiliation has increased dramatically.]
The parable of the treasure hidden in the field also relies on a “reaction shot” to reveal the treasure: the man kneeling in wonder, love, and praise when he finds the treasure, then running back in wonder, love, and praise to sell all he has to buy the field.
So much of the bounded set approach to religion is driven by the fear of the worrying head (”We’ve gotta get this right! How can we hold this thing together?”) instead of the joy of the singing heart.
I know that fear. I’ve felt that fear. (If we take a center set approach,
how’s it going to hold together?)
But I’ve learned to distrust that kind of fear. I’ve never seen fear-based religion produce much fruit in the long run. It’s so determined to pull up the weeds it ends up pulling out much of the wheat along with it. (In the “parable of the tares” Jesus warns against “weeding the field” in this way and for this reason: in the process of pulling up the weeds, we pull up wheat along with it.)
That doesn’t square with Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah: “the bruised reed he will not break, the smoldering wick he will not snuff out.”
This fear is based on a false assumption: that we have to make it work. NO! NO! NO! The Jesus movement of all movements is in good hands! In the hands of Jesus who lives by the power of an indestructible life!
We don’t have to hold this thing together! There’s only ONE who can hold this thing together, the one at the center before whom we bend the knee and burst into song!
One the two main New Testament words for “worship” is the Greek, proskuneo: “to bow toward so as to kiss”. When we are “bowing toward so as to kiss”, when we are bending the knee or the heart’s equivalent, and singing our Hymns of Him to Him…that’s when we are gripped by a glorious assurance: that the CENTER HOLDS.
—Ken Wilson Feb. 24, 2008
Participants’ Notes
Series Introduction
Over 4 sermons, consider 4 core values: Jesus is our center; The gospel is our message; The Bible is our book; Love is our aim. Understood in light of our task to “humbly bear the transforming presence of Jesus into the heart of A2 area.”
Jesus is our Center: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” (Mt. 13:44)
Earlier image of a yearning-searcher kneeling in dirt over treasure: Gen. 2:7
(In this case, God “sells all that he has” to regain what we spoiled.)
Jesus is our Center: the treasure hidden in the field of religion.
Jesus is our shared & only treasure.
Because so much American Christianity has buried the treasure beneath a pile of cultural debris (making it difficult for the people we love to find the treasure) we need to highlight this fact: Jesus is the treasure buried in the field of religion.
A strategic consideration: especially in this climate, to humbly bear the transforming presence of Jesus into the heart of the Ann Arbor area, we need to consciously be what Vineyard Churches have always aimed to be: centered set, not bounded set churches. (Jesus himself being the treasure at the Center.)
Bounded set approach: believe, behave, then belong.
Centered set approach: belong, then believe and behave.
The bounded set approach requires pilgrims to swallow the package whole
Centered set approach: Jesus is our Center; we’re all pilgrims from many different points of origin. The question isn’t how close you are or how far away…But which way are you facing? Are you willing to take one step closer to knowing?
The centered set approach is not saying belief and behavior doesn’t matter.
(We are called to speak the truth in love to each other.)
The centered set approach provides breathing room and time for “faith [belief] to work itself out in love [behavior]”
To say that Jesus is our Center is not to say we are trying to form a churchless Christianity. Jesus identifies with the church and calls us to as well.
For better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, he’s stuck with his bride and so are we! Her history–good and bad–is our history. Her challenges, ours challenges. Her future is our future.
But when we say “the church” we mean the whole church:
Liturgical: Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox among whom reside; beautiful forms of worship; prayer forms that empowered the mystics.
Social Justice: Quakers, peace churches, African American Churches that gave rise to the civil rights movement; those with a passion for justice.
Evangelical: the Billy Graham & Rick Warren Christians who love the gospel, taking it to every nation believing it is the power of God for salvation.
Pentecostal: those who open wide to the power of the Holy Spirit, pray for the sick, believe in miracles.
[Corner Dwellers say, “Oh No! We’ve got a corner on the truth….Our way or the highway!” So busy guarding the boundaries, they’ve forgotten about the center.]
The dynamic of the Spirit over the centuries–the momentum stronger than ever today–is toward the Center, the Center being Jesus.
As we get closer to the center, that’s where the treasures of each quadrant get more concentrated. As we get closer to the center, we discover new-to-us treasures from the different quadrants.
Closing reflection on the “the director’s reaction shot” : the church kneeling to sing, rather than standing to argue-debate.