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Becoming like Jesus together (1)

It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’. (Acts 11.26)

We often speak of communities or public institutions having a character. Their character is a shared ethos and nature, shaped by their self-understanding and their history and context, and which in turn shape subsequent generations. We speak sometimes of an institution of being demanding, volatile or anxious – at other times an institution might be described as having its tail up, feeling positive, being a good, stable place to be.

I have discovered that dioceses each have a particular ethos and character. Every time I visit one diocese, at least three people come up to me and repeat the old joke about this particular diocese being the Dead See. It’s not actually like that at all. It’s a diocese with many points of life. But that joke is a deep part of the people’s character and self-understanding. Another sees its permanent identity as ‘old fashioned’ or ‘low’, and so is closed to new ideas.

Just like a person, a local church or Christian community has a certain character formed by its experiences and history. A church that has known acute suffering or shared in the suffering of its community would bear that experience in different ways in its character. In the middle period of my time as Warden of Cranmer Hall, the life of the college was marked by a series of sudden and tragic deaths. The experience of grieving together and daily worship in the context of such suffering grew a particular character of tenderness and gentleness in the college in those years. People were good at looking out for one another. In a similar way, a church that has known nothing but prosperity will be marked by that experience. The seven short and sharp letters to different churches at the beginning of the Book of Revelation catch seven different ‘characters’ in the image of the angel of each church.

But what is the character of the Church as a whole and of each local community meant to be like? I want to argue in this and the next chapter that the Church is called to be a community that reflects the character and nature of Jesus Christ to our wider society. To bear the name of Christ is also to attempt to bear the nature of Christ. The idea of a ‘name’ in the Bible is a big idea and implies a character as well. This is a challenging and demanding calling. When Jesus says ‘Follow me!’ to each disciple and to the Church as a whole, he means first and foremost ‘Become like me’.

But what would that mean in practice? What would a cell group or a congregation or a circuit or a diocese (or the Church nationally) have to look like to reflect the character of Christ? We need to do some Bible study at this point.

There are many places we might explore in the Gospels to discover the character of Christ. It’s an inexhaustible theme. However, the place I want to begin is the eight short statements at the head of the Sermon on the Mount, which we call the beatitudes. What would happen if we attempted to set these key verses at the heart of our vision for the Church?

The beatitudes in brief

Matthew’s Gospel, as you may know, groups the teaching of Jesus into five collections, which are sometimes compared to the five books of Moses (the first five books of the Old Testament). The first and the most important of these five collections is the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 to 7. The Sermon on the Mount begins with these eight balanced and short statements. We call them the beatitudes because they all begin with the word ‘blessed’ (some English translations also use the term ‘happy’). These eight statements are to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew what the Ten Commandments are to Moses. They form a beautiful and attractive description of Christian character.

In their original setting in the Gospel, they are addressed to a particular community: the first disciples of Jesus (Matthew 5.1). The term ‘disciple’ is a key one for this Gospel: it is Matthew who refers most to the disciples and has the Great Commission as the last words of the Gospel with the command to ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations’ (Matthew 28.19). The disciples are, for Matthew above all, the prototype for the Christian community, the Church, and named as such in Matthew 18.17 (the only references to the term ‘Church’ in the four Gospels).

The first time we meet the term ‘disciple’ in the Gospel is at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: before Matthew tells us what disciples are to do, we need to learn what they are called to be. What is to be the character of the new Christian community?

Each of the beatitudes is in the plural form, not the singular. It’s an obvious point, but one we miss very easily today for this passage and for much of the rest of the New Testament. The sayings are primarily about not about how I am as an individual, but how we are as a group: our character together. When we read the text today we tend to go straight to the individual interpretation: this is how I am to be and to behave. But actually the eight sayings are primarily about how Christians are together. They are values for community living. No human being other than Jesus will ever be able to reflect all eight of these beautiful attitudes: these hallmarks of a Christian character. But, as Church, we may be able to reflect them as different Christians bring different gifts and perspectives. By and large they are not, in any case, virtues that you can practise on your own. We will learn them in community as we meet with people who reflect these qualities in different ways and as we come face to face with our own shortcomings and strengths.

The beatitudes are also all statements of hope – each one is followed by a promise. You can only seek to reshape the Church positively in the perspective of resurrection hope. Hope in the Christian tradition is not a vaguely positive feeling but a great theological virtue: a hallmark of character. Christians are called to practise hope every day, just as we are called to practise love and faith. You simply cannot reshape and renew God’s Church if your starting point is cynicism or despair or ambition for yourself.

The beatitudes are also all powerful statements of affirmation. Jesus does not shape the Church in this text by criticizing his disciples, but by loving them and seeking to affirm them and to build them up in certain virtues that they already reveal in part.

Finally, taken together, the beatitudes are, I think, intended by Matthew as a summary statement of the character of Jesus himself. Matthew will go on to describe the actions and the life of Jesus in great depth and detail, and his Gospel will demonstrate to us that Jesus is all of these things. You can trace the way he does this in any good commentary or simply by reading the Gospel through from beginning to end with the beatitudes in front of you. These eight sayings capture the character of Jesus in a very concise way. I want to suggest that this is to be our vision in our formation of Christian communities for the twenty-first century. This is our compass for the guiding and guarding of the Church. This is how we are to find direction and navigate through times of great change.

As we read them through and explore them, each of us needs to try to apply them to the communities we are called to serve and shape and be part of. If you are part of a fresh expression of church, how can you help that community to reflect this character of Christ? If you worship in three rural congregations, how can they grow to reflect these virtues? If you are part of the deanery synod or a circuit steward, how can your deanery or circuit be more Christ-like in these ways? If you are responsible in some way for the diocese, then how can this be a diocese that reflects the character and person of Jesus whatever the changing circumstances of the next decades?

We believe as Christians that the risen Jesus, who has this same character today, is with us in our individual prayer and reading, as I write these words and you reflect on them, as we gather together with others in his name. One of the key ways the presence of Jesus will be shown is by the presence of these beautiful qualities in the life of his community. As we demonstrate this character of Jesus in our life together – always imperfectly – so the Christian faith is likely to become more attractive to the society we are called to serve. We need more and more to be Christians and churches with attitude: and the attitudes are to be the characteristics of Jesus.

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 5.3)

The first quality is, I think, genuinely the most important to Matthew. ‘Poor in spirit’ is an intriguing phrase. Of all the translations, I like best the one that says: ‘Happy are those who know their need of God.’ It’s less poetic than the original, but captures the meaning very well.

Jesus is saying ‘Blessed are those who know they are spiritually poor and impoverished. They are in the right place.’

Think for a moment what that means. When we know we need God then we are truly blessed. When we are self-sufficient and full of our own goodness then we are in real trouble.

Despite all the problems we face, and despite progress in many areas, the Church in Britain still does not seem to me at the moment to know in a very deep way that we are poor in spirit and in need of God’s grace. We more easily, I think, convey an impression carried over from previous generations that we are rich, that we have prospered, that we need nothing (Revelation 3.17).

There are, of course, exceptions to this. But in general terms, to visit many of our meetings, you would not think that we know we are spiritually poor and dependent in every moment on God’s grace. The burden of our history has inflated our sense of self-importance and self-sufficiency. We think we can get by without God.