Sermon from May 20, 2001
I often feel uncomfortable when someone asks, "Is so and so a Christian?" My discomfort arises from the fact that often all I have to go on is a person's profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and I am far more prepared to accept that profession than some of my friends. My discomfort becomes acute when someone asks, "Is so and so a real Christan?" I do not know a person's soul in the manner that is required by that word real. How could anyone know that? And larger issues than my discomfort are at stake.

For example, the question "Is so and so a Christian?" may imply that a "real" Christian will express his faith in Jesus exactly as we do. More likely and more dangerously, it may imply that a "real" Christian must have a certain kind of emotional experience in order to be certified as one of us.

These implications trace their spiritual ancestry back to the Puritans. In 1656 John Beadle wrote a book called The Journal or Diary of a Thankful Christian. He says there that "the godly man should 'keep a strict account of his effectual calling.' If possible, he should 'set down the time when, the place where, and the person by whom he was converted.'" (quoted in Haller, The Rise of Puritanism, 96).

Three hundred and fifty years ago, the Puritan Commonwealths of Massachusetts and Connecticut tried to build an entire social order around people who could give such "a strict account of (their) effectual calling." In that Puritan culture a person could not present children for baptism, nor could he partake in the Lord's Supper unless able to give a credible account of a fervent conversion.

The Puritans discovered that they could not sustain a church along those lines. Most parents will testify how difficult it is to pass their religious fervor intact to their children. As a result, church membership was shrinking, and since only land-holding males who could give a credible account of their effectual calling could be voting citizens, Massachusetts and Connecticut faced a political and social crisis.

The Puritains came up with an ingenious, not to say disingenuous, compromise called the Half-Way Covenant. That allowed baptized people to have their children baptized, which allowed the next generation to be church members, which allowed them to be citizens. Nevertheless, without a credible account of fervent conversion, a person was still not considered in full communion with the church. Within another generation, even that compromise proved elusive. The Puritans discovered how impossible it is to build the church on a foundation of emotional religion.

Even so, the ghost of this way of life still haunts the conscience of evangelical Protestants. It creates in us a kind of irritable suspicion that if someone can't come up with an emotional conversion story, then they are not "real" Christians.

Whether emotional or not, all we have to go on is a person's profession of faith in Jesus Christ. We have to give the person every benefit of a doubt that his faith is genuine, and we may hope he will likewise give us every benefit of a doubt. Does the person mean it? We give him the benefit of a doubt. Is the emotional experience genuine? We give him the benefit of a doubt. It's a different way to think, isn't it? It belongs to the renewal of the mind that just might set us evangelicals free from the cultural straight jackets we wear, when we are around other Christians.

Mind you, I don't criticize the value of an emotional conversion experience. I had one myself, as did the Apostle Paul. But making a certain kind of emotional experience the test of genuine Christianity strikes me as more cultural than biblical, and it creates an "us and them" mentality among professing Christians.

I am no longer willing to accept that mentality. I do not deny serious doctrinal differences among Christians. I am not saying that doctrine doesn't matter. Doctrinal differences matter enormously. Stick to your guns. Hold your convictions as intelligently and as winsomely as possible. I am saying that instead of viewing other professing Christians with the suspicion that they are not Christians, why not view them with the suspicion that they might be Christians and treat them accordingly. We might be astonished at our impact. The world might be astonished at our impact.

Another great contribution of the Gospel of Mark to human life speaks with unexpected relevance to this issue. Its contribution emerges brilliantly in the terse and tightly written section of Mark that comprises chapters nine and ten as well as the last few verses of chapter eight.

Beginning at Mark 8:31and going through Mark 10:52, Mark makes his story about Jesus revolve around a threefold pattern that he repeats three times. Here is the pattern. Jesus' prediction of His suffering and death is always the first part of the pattern. The second part is always some inappropriate, uncomprehending response on the part of His disciples. The third part of the pattern is always a reply to the disciples' response in which Jesus challenges and teaches them and the following stories reinforce the challenge to grasp more clearly what it means to be followers of a suffering Messiah.

We began the second repetition last week. The reply to the disciples' response in this second repetition is the longest of the three. It goes from Mark 9:35 through Mark 10:31. However, what distinguishes His response in this section is not its length but its challenge to conventional ways of thinking. Mark 8:35 paved the way for this challenge. Think for a minute of what Jesus said there.

"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." This serves as the theme of every challenge to come. In chapter 9:19 He said to His self-confident but ineffective disciples, "O unbelieving generation! How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? In the kingdom of God confidence in your own abilities does not equal faith." Last week in Mark 9:35 He said to His disciples, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." He did not squelch their ambition. He redirected it. In each case He turns our usual ways of thinking about life upside down.

Conventional ways of thinking about life hit a wall when Jesus said He was a Messiah, who was doomed to die. In His responses to their unbelief Jesus said in effect, "Now that I have your attention, let me remake your mind by showing you how the kingdom of God really works." Every challenge He makes offers a bracing alternative to our conventional frame of mind. We see it at work in verse 38.

In his conventional way of thinking John, the brother of James, son of Zebedee, reported something he and the others didn't like, and they told Jesus what they had done about it. "Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us."

The unnamed man was doing something Jesus Himself was doing, something the disciples were doing, and he was doing it in the name of Jesus. That sounds good. The people who found relief from their demonization must have been pleased. They were happy for the man who had come their way; maybe they had good words for Jesus in whose name the deed was done. John and the other eleven are not happy. They are not happy, they say, "because he is not one of us."

We can understand their point of view. "We were scared out of our wits in the storm at sea. We took the heat when we didn't understand the meaning of His miracles. We went up to the mountain with Jesus. He authorized us to drive out demons. Our actions have come to the attention of the king. Who is this nobody? What mountain was he on? Who authorized him to drive out demons?" They take matters into their own hands and tell him to cease and desist. It seems they thought Jesus would approve. Otherwise, why bother to tell Him?

Their behavior makes all the sense in the world in a competitive marketplace. There we need to be licensed to use someone else's name. John and the rest must have been taken aback by the Lord's uncompetitive response in verses 39-40.

"Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me." He reversed their decision, pointed out a piece of important common sense, and then laid down a powerful guiding principle. "Whoever is not against us is for us." Just how far Jesus is wiling to take that principle becomes clear in verse 41.

"I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward." Driving out demons in Messiah's name is spectacular. Giving someone a drink of water in Messiah's name is rather unspectacular. But giving the water to someone who belongs to Christ not only quenches thirst but also deserves a reward. That seems extreme, like the saying back in verse 39: "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Verse 42 goes even further. Jesus says, "And  if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck." I wonder occasionally about what this means in light of the careless way in which the entertainment industry in the name of free speech leads astray children, and not only children but also anyone of tender heart toward Christ. Decision-makers exhibit a far too callous indifference to their impact on tender consciences. Somehow, I do not think it will be persuasive on their day of reckoning to say that studies had not demonstrated the harmful effects of their products.

In any case I am sure you have noticed that these sayings invest enormous authority in the name of Christ. In order to appreciate more how enormous, we need again to make a more proper translation of the word Christ. In every case these sayings invest authority in the name of Messiah; that is, in the name of the Messiah who is doomed to suffer and die.

That seems contradictory, and it remains to be seen how authority of any kind comes to be invested in One whose career moves relentlessly toward rejection, suffering and death. Nevertheless, the One who predicted His sufferings also spoke of an authority of His name, which made seemingly insignifcant deeds take on uncommon significance. This is the mystery of godliness. This calls for faith. This also calls for a response on our part to what we do understand; and we do understand enough to act.

These remarkable verses speak to a great need in the Church. When John tells Jesus how they had put a stop to the outsider's exorcisms, he serves as a model of an attitude that poisons relations between Christians. I began this sermon with a caution about making a certain kind of emotional experience the test of genuine Christianity, which strikes me as more cultural than biblical, and which creates an "us and them" mentality among professing Christians.

We Evangelical Protestants here in the Northeast Corridor are living in "Catholic country." It behooves us to be thoughtful about how to relate to our large and more powerful neighbor. Fundamental to doing so is Jesus' powerful guiding principle: "Whoever is not against us is for us." I would like to identify two ways in which I believe we evangelical Protestants might contribue to Roman Catholic Christians, and two ways in which Roman Catholic Christians might contribute to us.

First, here is a quotation from a profound Roman Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar. "The future of the church ... depends on whether laymen can be found who live out the unbroken power of the gospel and are willing to shape the world," (Balthasar, Razing the Bastions, 42). I don't know if that would have impacted me as I did, had I not had a remarkable conversation several years ago with a Catholic priest from West Islip, NY. We were seated together randomly for lunch, and we discovered each other's calling in life. I did a doubletake, when he told me he had taken a number of his parishioners from West Islip to Barrington, IL to Willow Creek Church, so they could learn how to discover and use their spiritual gifts.

I did not know Roman Catholics even knew about Willow Creek, much less cared about finding and using spiritual gifts. I believe we might have a contribution to make to Roman Catholic Christians, because dozens of you know what it means to have places of decision-making, spiritual guidance, Bible teaching and witness that might bless them.

Here is a second quotation from an associate editor of First Things, a Catholic magazine. "Catholics tend to find comfort and security in their membership in the church, as they should ... their faith becomes routine, as in regular, and appropriately so. But it can beomce routine, as in routinized. Some seem to presume that not being excommunicated or in a state of mortal sin is the totality of the Christian life, as if the whole purpose of being a Catholic were to avoid being thrown out of the Church ....

"Many Catholics are bad Christians, and if some bad Christians become better Christians through the influence of evangelical Protestants, Deo gratia," (Daniel Moloney, First Things, December 2000, 12, 14).

This is astonishing. I believe we might have a contribution to make to Roman Catholic Christians, because hundreds of you have a deep desire that your fath in Christ not become stultifying, irrelevant or dead. You seek to work it into your job, marriage, leisure, education, family and personal decision-making.

I also believe the Roman Catholic Church might have a contribution to make to evangelical Protestants. First, the Catholic Church knows how to speak to the world with one voice. We Protestants get our backs up about papal infallibility, but the reality is that popes seldom speak ex cathedra. The last time, I believe, was 1870. When Pope John Paul II sends out an encyclical, he does so after sustained conversation with theologians, sociologists, anthropologists, economists and Catholic bishops worldwide.

By contrast, we Protestants are like fine crystal dropped on a marble floor. Our witness is shattered to pieces. We do not, cannot speak with one voice. Might not the power of the Catholic Church to speak to the world with one voice challenge us to look for ways to do the same?

Second, if I want to get a basic grasp on important social issues such as capital punishment, abortion, poverty, or just war theory, I will turn the first time every time to Catholic social doctrine. I know Catholic thinkers have thought it through carefully, tested it, and declared it publicly. I think we have a lot to learn in this matter.

If there is to be fruitful exchange between evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians, it will take place first and best at the grass roots: across a lunch table, in your living room, in chance conversations in a hallway. If we can do that with affection, respect and an openness to learn, we may be astonished at the impact we might have together on our secular society.

None of this means that doctrine does not matter. Serious docrinal differences exist between evangelical and Catholic Christians. A large common, doctrinal ground also exists between us. May Christ show His power in us as we debate the differences, exploit the common ground and bear witness to Jesus Christ, the Lord of all the earth.