Message Series: Continuing the Work of Jesus – Part 3 – “Together”

Sermon Series:  Continuing the Work of Jesus – Part 3

 Message Aim:   To teach about the Brethren’s core value on Togetherness

 Sermon Title:     “Together”         

 Scripture:    Mark 3:31-35

³¹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. ³² A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” ³³ “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. ³⁴ Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Synopsis:

How many of you have ever attended a Brethren District Conference or a Brethren Annual Conference? One thing you will notice is that everybody seems to refer to themselves or to refer to other people in terms of family like language. Everybody is referring to each other as sisters and brothers. Today we are wrapping up a three sermon series that is based on the Church of the Brethren motto which is, “Continuing the work of Jesus: peacefully, simply, and together.”

This week we get to the word TOGETHER; the word together points to the very high value that Brethren put on the church community. This whole idea of a close Christian community is actually the most explicit thing that we have in the Church of the Brethren. I mean it’s even built into the name of our denomination. The name of a denomination is the Church of the Brethren. The word Brethren just means family, inclusive term of all people in the congregation, men and women.  A couple hundred years ago the church just referred to themselves as Brethren.

For us the modern equivalent would be to say that we are describing ourselves as family.  And this is an important thing to know.  Because this is something very important about what it means for us to be the church together, the church as a family.  What we are saying is that we take anybody and everybody who wants to follow Jesus and we create a new family, a new bond between people that goes across all of those different lines. That’s what the first Brethren meant when they called themselves the Brethren.  And interestingly it’s an idea that comes straight from Jesus himself.

The crowd says to Jesus, “Hey, your family’s outside they want you to leave with them.”  And Jesus says, “Well, who really is my family?” And then he looks around and he points to his disciples, to his followers and says, “Here’s my family, here are my mother and my brothers.” And then he goes on to say “Whoever does the will of God is my mother, my sister, my brother.” Whoever does the will of God that is really my mother and my sister and my family.

The thing about this scene is there really is a radical redefinition of what it means to be family and what it means to be the people of God for that matter.  And this brings us to today; brings us to the question of what all of this means for us here and now. In part I think it means that when we say that we are Brethren we’re not just talking about a particular denomination or an official title or specific tradition. When we say that we are Brethren and we are describing the kinds of relationships that we intend to have with each other, we’re saying that we see each other not just as people who show up on Sunday morning together for worship service. Rather we are making the claim that we see each other as a family.

So to be Brethren is to be like family and that should be a description of our relationships we have with each other. I would say that there are three basic things that we need to do on a regular basis to help build these relationships. Those three things are (1) shared food (2) shared adventure and a (3) shared walk with Christ.

The motto, “continuing the work of Jesus: peacefully, simply, together.” So what kind of church is God calling us to be and what kind of work is God calling us to do.  I would say as we look to the future of this church that we are called to be people who are centered on Jesus Christ. We are called to make more followers of Jesus. We’re called to work for peace and justice in this world. We’re called to live in a more simple way that helps us to follow Jesus better. And we are called to come together as a community of believers, to support each other and to be connected with each other in the way that a strong healthy family is connected with each other. And I would say that his congregation at times has lived up to this in the most beautiful and amazing way. But, because we live in a world that continues to change we must continue to ask what it means for us to truly “continue the work of Jesus: peacefully, simply, and together.”