I remember during my school age growing up in the sixties and seventies, which happened to coincide with the so-called renewal movement in the church, being asked by classmates if I were a Christian, and more particularly had I made a “decision for Christ.” The question perplexed me then as it still does now. I didn’t have a ready answer. I of course referred the question to my mother, the household theologian, and she with a wave of the hand said it is much more about Jesus choosing us from the very beginning (I think she meant:of time) than any choice we might make….our baptisms the outward and visible signs thereof…a symbol of who we are already created to be, a celebration of our DNA, a celebration that is of our being created in the image of God…a symbol of our destiny that we are dead to the world of evil and alive to the new creation envisioned by our God. That answer was and has been good enough for me. Would that it were so simple as to make a once upon a time “decision for Christ,” but being a Christian is much, so much more. I had a seminary classmate who said he came to Christ giving an exact date and time….perplexing. That is not to say that there aren’t moments of conversion, moments of joy and ecstasy…but these are moments along a winding and arduous journey that will require our all.
Being a Christian is not having a “personal” relationship with Jesus (whatever that means…another perplexing use of language for me) Being a Christian is living as community the way Jesus taught us to live….living in community recognizing that the life of faith is not a solitary enterprise, but participation in a movement, in a community whose collective vocation is to change the world for the better. To be Christians we must be enlightened critics of the injustices of the world; we must work for imaginative and just decisions that affect the common good; we must practice kindness and mercy and forgiveness….to live this manner of life is to know for real the risen Christ….Christianity is a public enterprise, not a private piety; a public enterprise that acts selflessly only for the good of the whole.
One of the scribes of the Book of Proverbs in the words of the figure of Lady Wisdom describes the life of faith as a life-long process of “maturing.” So in that regard we never arrive as Christians…We are always on the way… always in the process of becoming…Christianity, a lifelong process of maturing into our true humanity….I expect I will have to labor on day after day, supported by my brother and sister sojourners, into the vibrant and challenging life of the Christian faith….a vocation into which we are born to become the true humanity made in God’s image, which is to make manifest God’s kingdom in earth….God’s kingdom is not a magic castle in the sky, but God’s people living, working, by God’s grace, into who we are created to be….people of the way….world changers, enablers of the good…..When did you”come to Christ?” Coming, still coming….
