In Christ

"In Christ"

July 15, 2012;  Chris Jewell

New beginnings--Being in and participating in a new environment, being in a new creation. This, according to the apostle Paul and his earliest disciples, including the author of our text this morning— summarizes the Christian message. The author of Ephesians uses the phrase “In Christ” or one of its equivalents 11 times in verses 3-14 of chapter one. “In Christ”, “in him”, “in the heavenly places”, all point to a new beginning, being in a new state of being, being in a new environment, a new creation.

I guess this morning I am feeling very Christian—for I am definitely aware that I am in a new place, in a new environment—the pulpit at Fairport United Methodist Church.Right out of the gate I have to reveal something about myself—although I was raised in a Methodist church by Methodist parents, I am a convert—for my experience of Methodism, of Christianity—is radically different today than it was even a short time ago. That is why Paul and his school of thought interest me—for our great apostle, mystic, and social architect was a convert speaking to other converts.

When Margaret and I first discussed my role in today’s service she sent an email saying “I have penciled you in on the 15^th to preach slash, tell your story. And it started to become real—uhoh, preach, tell my story-- Ten years ago in divinity school I didn’t see this happening…after all I was a bit of a loner and an introvert--- (I’m still an introvert) who was also a non-church student who saw himself going on to the classroom not thechurch and certainly not the pulpit. That was the thought—the academic road to the PhD. So I finished up the MA degrees at Colgate and St. Bernard’s and was accepted into a PhD program in San Francisco, a city I had always felt drawn to—and would eventually study in. But the summer before I was to leave for the west coast I noticed something shifting, stirring within myself—In divinity school I had spent most of my time reading, studying, and interpreting stories and letters about other people’s religious experiences—as I read the letters of Paul and his disciples, including Ephesians, it bothered me that I was simply reading about someone else’s experience of Being “in Christ”, not actually having the experience of Being in Christ. This was like the difference between reading a story about being in the TajMahal whilesitting in Starbuck’s in Rochester NY vs actually walking into andbeing in the TajMahal. And so there I was—sitting uncomfortably with the realization that reading about being in Christ was not the same experience as actually being in Christ—I must confess I had not been in the “heavenly places”, or in the Christ that we read about in Ephesians.  Ephesians marks a shift—the blessings in and from the “heavenly places”, the blessings that result from being “in Christ” are spoken of as being experienced in the present---rather than at some future point. Iknew at that time I wasn’tpresently and deeply experiencing the blessings the author of Ephesians wrote about—I was reading about other people experiencing these blessings--Christianity had somehow come across to me as a spectator religion---I knew that both the apocalyptic Judaism out of which Christianity was born and early Christianity itself were not spectator religions—they were transformative practices that actually transformed.So I found myself standing at a crossroads—do I go down the road leading to the PhD or do I explore another way? I deferred my acceptance in San Francisco and opted for a meditation practicum in Boulder Colorado.  Scholars like Marcus Borg and Christopher Rowland had shown me that early Jewish and Christian mystics like Jesus and Paul practiced deep forms of prayer and meditation as a way to access the “Heavenly places”, but I had very few if any opportunities to learn or practice these myself while studying theology, for the emphasis was on the rational, not the contemplative.

In Boulder I found myself meditating several times a day—and at least once a week I would gather with the other participants for a group session. We were a diverse group—men and women with different religious and cultural backgrounds. Women and men who had grown up Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian all gathered together to discuss our meditative technique and experiences. As I sat in and discussed meditation I began to catch snap-shots of the workings of my own mind. Practicing meditative techniques similar to those Jesus and Paul practiced opened up another dimension of Christianity to me. I started to see I was like Jesus’ “rich young man”-- it was my material and my psychological possessions—my ideas, conclusions, prejudices about myself and the world—that built up and kept me in what Paul calls the “old self”—and that prevented me from entering the “new state of being” that is being “in Christ”—I could see that the “new self” that the author of Ephesians writes of transcends those psychological possessions. I also began to suspect that this was what Jesus had in mind when he asked us to “lose our life in order to save it”. There was something remarkable about a group of people all engaged in this practice—we were all together questioning our conclusions about the world—our conclusions and ideas about our identities. There was no more Jew or Greek male nor female, slave nor free. I had experienced moments filled with the “spiritual blessings” that the author of the letter to the Ephesians writes about—for example, the self-transcendent feeling of being a member in “the body of Christ”.

As the course ended I felt as if a transformation had begun—changing how I viewed and what I wanted to do in the field of theology. I felt that practice—and not just meditative practice—was the gap closer—the action that built the bridge between the experience of reading about being in Christ and the experience of actually being in Christ. And out there in the mountains of Colorado I realized that being in Christ felt and lookedvery different than I had imagined—in fact it was strange and somehow separate from the “old” Christianity that I had labeled a spectator religion. Christ and the Heavenly places were shockingly new structures that challenged my old perspective when only experienced briefly from the inside. Having grown up in a religion that had long ago become identified with the dominant culture I could for the first time appreciate Christ as counter-cultural, for this was a Christ that demanded I question and challenge the culture within. This iswhy I deliberately chose to project a picture of the TajMahal—an image that is non-neutral and somewhat challenging to the dominant culture—imagine what the image of a “good Samaritan” did to the first Jews thatsaw it in their mind’s eye. The Jews generally despised Samaritans. Jesus and Paul both consistently question and challenge the dominant cultures of their place and time.

I came back to Rochester with a renewed sense of the importance of both practice and community and soon found myself speaking to a Salvation Army officer. He described for me what he called a “residential church”. It sounded interesting to me—a “residential church”. I told him of my interest in practical theology---putting theological principles and practices to work to see if they can transform lives—in a way similar to twelve-step groups, organizations that have done just that, radically transforming millions of lives for nearly 80 years. He offered me a job—working in a part of town I generally avoided for a variety of reasons. Since I have been a counselor at the Salvation Army I have been enraged, ashamed, puzzled and humbled by the conditions and challenges the people of our community live in and with. I also see men and women participating in a New Reality while seemingly trapped in an old one. That I can certainly relate to. The importance of community, of support, of the “Body of Christ” has never been made clearer to me than at the Salvation Army. In ancient Israel redemption was group redemption—as the Pauline author of Ephesians writes, “In him we have redemption.” That is the message I have received via my religious practice and my time in our community on West Avenue:If one is actually in Christ, actually inthe Heavenly Places then one’s self-centered barriers can come down—and allow for the “we” experience called redemption—even  those of us who are introverted loners.