January 20, 2023
Who gets what?
If you have been online or watching television lately, you have probably seen some of the efforts of the “He Gets Us” campaign. This is being funded by The Signatry, a Kansas based nonprofit organization that is spending upwards of $100 million to rehabilitate Jesus’ image in the broader culture. It hopes to offer alternatives to an ‘increasingly divisive and mean-spirited world’ as stated on their website. It seeks to connect Jesus with the variety of experiences of people—all sorts of people—in our world today. It seeks to emphasize the humanity of Jesus as an expression of the compassion of God in Christ. It also hopes to give Christians a foothold for conversations with their neighbors that they might not otherwise have.
However new the packaging, this is not a new concept. The Book of Hebrews is both insistent and consistent that Jesus is like us in every respect (i.e. Hebrews 2:17) so that Jesus might make atonement for and with the entirety of humankind. This raises the questions of how we communicate this understanding of Christ, as well as how we live this reality out.
This past Tuesday I met with Christopher, the director of Peer Seattle, our next-door neighbor on Bellevue Avenue. They began in the 1980s as a response to the HIV/AIDS crisis that was affecting primarily gay men. Over time their mission has expanded. They now address issues of mental health and well-being, addiction and recovery, as well as sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. They also have resources for employment, housing, and other social services, including providing a safe place for members of the LGBTQ+ community. They also have expanded their geographical reach with locations around Washington under the larger “Peer Washington” umbrella, whose offices are on the floor above them.
Although all this is noteworthy, it is not really exceptional; other agencies do many, even most, of these same things. What sets them apart in my mind is that everyone who works for them is a person who has experienced the challenges of the clients they care for. This is a ministry of empathy, as those who walk into any of the Peer locations will encounter someone who has walked in their shoes and understands first-hand what they are facing.
What struck me as I reflected on what I learned there is how much they are the expression of what we as a church should be. We as a church are a community of people in the process of having our lives redeemed by the love of God in Christ. We ought not see anyone who enters the doors of our church as less than us in any way, nor we as having achieved a higher status of any kind. A quick read of the second chapter of James will remind us of the expectations that Christians are Christians by grace, not merit or effort. But this also makes us realize that this was written because hierarchal responses to our neighbors have been with the church from its earliest days. Might we all pray for humility in our attempts to be empathetic and “status neutral.” In other words, we are peers with our neighbors.
But all this begs the question: if more Christian churches lived into the sort of expectations made in the New Testament—from the gospels to James and beyond—would we need to worry about rehabilitating people’s perception of the Jesus we follow? In this season of Epiphany, might we have the mind of Christ that inspires humility to let go of our self-interest and focus on the interests of others (Philippians 2:4ff). That in doing so, the light of Christ might burn brightly enough within our church community that people will follow it, as the Magi followed the star. And in following that light, they might discover the God of love incarnate, allowing the light of Christ’s love to illumine their lives as well. This is what I hope that people would get.
Let us all pray to this end.
~ Pastor Todd
P.S. Recently, three people have expressed interest in joining our church. We will be holding a few sessions to introduce people to our church, which will be required to become members. However, you may attend these gatherings without intention to join, but simply because you are more interested in learning about First Covenant Church. If you are interested in attending these sessions, please contact me so we can schedule them in the weeks ahead to accommodate all that who wish to attend. Thank you for your response—and especially in bringing this to people’s attention who you think might be interested.