belonging to Jesus

The reformer in me is ever-tempted by the idea of a Ninety-Five Theses moment—a complete break from the ball of religion attached to my limbs by a chain of bureaucracy (in other words, your average Western church). What would it feel like to run—to set off at a sprint toward the finish line, cheered on by that Cloud of Witnesses, unencumbered by sin, guilt, law, fear, or any other unnecessary hindrance?

I have spent my life immersed in evangelicalism, in a variety of different local church bodies. The weight of religion seems to grow heavier over time, and I wonder if it’s because it didn’t feel like much of a burden when it gave me belonging. But what if conformity, not Christ, has been at the root of that belonging? Ever since I started seeking first the kingdom of heaven—sometimes at the expense of the “kingdom” of the church—the shackles of religion have become much more obvious.

When you belong, it’s so easy to believe that you’ve got it right. You are where you’re supposed to be, doing what you’re supposed to do. Your church must be approved by God, because you feel so at home there. But wait a second. Doesn’t that just mean your church is approved by . . . you?

I heard this quote recently for the first time, and it made me think:

Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence—religious meaning—apart from God as revealed through the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but, at least in America, almost never against the crowds.

Eugene H. Peterson

When my sense of belonging began to erode, I noticed: I may have been substituting the ecstasy of being part of the crowd for the actual transcendence of being part of Christ’s body.

I may have been conflating going to church and doing “churchy” things with obedience. I may have been measuring my faithfulness by how many Sundays my butt was in the pew. I may have started making my faith about going somewhere once a week for two hours to play-act the perfect mix of smiling and submissive and vulnerable and guarded—not about being something, being an apprentice of Christ alone, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

When Jesus called His disciples, He didn’t say “Meet me at the synagogue on the Sabbath for an hour.” He said, “Follow Me.”

Starting here, now, wherever we are and wherever we go—and continuing indefinitely. And, importantly, doing it together, even when our backgrounds are beyond disparate, our personalities mix like oil and water, and our political differences would normally have us killing each other. That’s what being a disciple means.

That’s what being the Church means.

The ball and chain of religion would have us believe that “church” is a place we go with a bunch of people who look and sound and think exactly like us. That it’s an event we help make happen, not a body that we are an animating part of. It often pushes a certificate of church membership or confirmation like it’s a certificate of marriage, forgetting that biblically, we don’t marry a church; we are the Bride of Christ. Religion tries to pass off valuing conformity as treasuring the truth, gatekeeping ministry as protecting the body, and upholding legalism as fearing God.

The truth is something to treasure—so maybe we shouldn’t try to shut down truth-seekers for fear that they’ll find where our statement of faith doesn’t fully reflect God’s heart.

The body is something to protect—so maybe we shouldn’t try to silence and dismiss whole demographics within it that could provide a valuable voice and perspective on behalf of its vulnerable.

God is Someone to fear—so maybe we should consider how He will judge those who, like Pharisees, obstruct the entrance to the kingdom of heaven by paving the way instead toward kingdoms of this world. Jesus said of them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven in front of people; for you do not enter it yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13, emphasis added).

I’m not calling out any particular church I’ve been part of in the last 30 years. I’m pleading with all of them. All of us.

Unity does not, cannot, mean conformity to a particular denomination or set of secondary and tertiary doctrines. The goal isn’t to belong to a large and growing crowd, it’s to become one healthy body. Genuine unity can only come through recognizing Christ as the body’s Head—meaning, according to Ephesians, its Unifier. Only a central focus on the Messiah Jesus, His death and resurrection, and His kingdom can bind us together into one living and working and fruit-bearing organism.

Any “unity” achieved through legalistic conformity instead of the pursuit of Jesus will lead only to the (continued) mass fracturing of Christianity into a million tiny echo chambers. We can’t accomplish our mission in that state.

The call of the disciple is simple and difficult: She must deny herself, take up her cross, and follow Jesus.

Jesus, not a crowd.

Jesus, not a husband.

Jesus, not a pastor.

Jesus, not a denomination.

Jesus, not a political party, candidate, or policy platform.

Jesus, not a particular side of a culture war.

Belonging, while a vitally important aspect of human flourishing, is not a biblical metric for how well we’re doing this. Belonging—at least the kind that feels comfortable, confirms all our priors, and lets us come together to congratulate ourselves on our rightness week after week—may not be part of the deal.

We belong to Jesus, and no other.

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.”

John 10:27-28