belonging and believing
Believing and belonging
The detailed history of the people of Israel in the Old Testament tells us a great deal about a close relationship between believing and belonging. Belonging was signalled by physical initiation. Male babies (including Jesus) were ritually circumcised at a few days old and became part of the tribe (Luke 1.59; 2.21).
Moreover belonging was cemented by the giving of the religious law which laid down common behaviours and proscriptions (Leviticus). In this way the people of Israel could be recognised by others and would be ethically holy, a light to the other nations (Isaiah 60.3). Belonging was intricately knotted into the belief in the one God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who keeps his promises if people keep his law (Exodus 19.5- 6). Belief, belonging and behaviour all go together as the prophets make clear (eg Jeremiah 13).
This interaction of belief and belonging however caused problems for the new Christian communities in the New Testament, because the new Christian teaching was now available to non-Jews. This immediately raised a problem for those Christians whose whole lives had otherwise been spent as a part of the Jewish community. Should new, male, Christians be circumcised? Should new Christians obey the food restrictions? Should new Christians have to give up their own cultures and take on a set of religious laws which were unfamiliar to them? In other words, did evangelising people into belief in Jesus also come with a set of rules about how to belong? The problems are constantly aired in Acts (see ch.15).
Needless to say Jesus points to the answer before his death. In his ministry he already began to prise apart forms of belonging which had become unrelated to belief, or even damaged it. When the
Pharisees challenge him about how he and his disciples break the Sabbath rules, thus alienating themselves from the obedient community, Jesus asks them to consider what the Sabbath is actually for and who it is supposed to honour (Luke 6.1-11). Jesus challenges those who are so hung up with the business of belonging, that they have forgotten what God wants. They are the ‘whited sepulchres’ (Matthew 23.27) who look ethically holy on the outside but whose insides are empty of faith and love for God.
Jesus also teaches us a great deal about fellowship, a form of belonging in which the fruits of belief in God bind people together. In Christian life, it is not rules and regulations, but the formation of family, which models God’s kingdom and the heavenly order. This is why Jesus sums up the commandments into a requirement to love others and self (eg Mark 12.28-34). Friendship, neighbourliness and care for those
far outside the pale put belief in a loving God into action. Such forms of fellowship mean it is possible to reach outside the original community to people of other faiths and none, to people who don’t know how to believe or where to start. The religious community is not a closed shop but a place of constant welcome.
So the early Christians, reflecting on all Jesus said and did, come to realise that new forms of believing and belonging are possible. Gentiles can be welcomed without circumcision or all the dietary laws (Acts 10 and 11). Christians find a new, inclusive way of belonging and sharing the good news that allows those on the fringes to find their way in. Through this new understanding mission is possible, and the sharing of our fellowship and gospel with every single human person whom God loves and wants, begins.
Anne Richards
Mission Theology Adviser, Church of England
6
www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk
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