From Me to We – Brad Jersak

“A People for My Name” (with inspiration from Cherith Fee Nordling)

From “I” and “Me” to “We” and “Us”

Recently, three experiences coincided to remind me that my growth (emotional and spiritual) includes a journey from I and Me to We and Us.

In reverse order,

• at a recovery meeting, we began with the Serenity Prayer, “God grant ME the serenity…” and 90 minutes later, repeated it while standing and holding hands in a circle, “God, grant US the serenity…”
• at a liturgical service, I noticed that while Orthodox believers cite the Creed, “I believe in one God,…” but in the Anglican tradition, the congregation says, “WE believe in one God…”
• at an Open Table School of Theology in Atlanta, GA, Amma (Rev. Dr.) Cherith Fee Nordling invited lonely ex-church Jesus-followers to be “a people called for his name”—more on that below.

In each of these cases, the notion that our recovery or our confession or our fellowship can succeed in isolation was challenged, but it was more than a simple binary of “that was wrong and this is right.” The way of growth recognizes important aspects of the journey from beginning to end. These three instances highlight that point:

• In recovery fellowships, the “I” and “Me” language is a confession of the individual’s personal need and personal responsibility. I cannot blame others accountable for my addictions or for my recovery. But then the “We” and “Us” language is a recognition that I don’t heal on my own. The belonging we experience in a fellowship provides the experience, strength, and hope we need to work the program and experience freedom.
• In liturgical worship, the “I” and “Me” language is a personal confession that we affirm at our baptism and before communion. It is a recognition that simply attending church or performing group rituals makes me a Christian. My faith calls me to make my faith my own. But then the “We” and “Us” language reminds me that healthy faith is not merely a private experience. The New Testament invites us into an household (oikos) or fellowship or family or body or assembly where we experience God’s love, grace, and forgiveness through and for one another.
• A people for his name is a trickier phrase—it can so easily be mistaken for an exclusive club of insiders and set us (Christian insider) over against them (the rest of humanity). That very mentality is what has caused many to flee communities of faith into isolation or keep them at a safe distance from institutional trauma. But Cherith walked us through that… “a people for his name” his name is not that. But I summarize her take, let’s pause to read a Scripture passage where that language is used.

Acts 15

¹² The whole assembly kept silence and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the gentiles. ¹³ After they finished speaking, James replied, “My brothers, listen to me. ¹⁴ Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. ¹⁵ This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written,

¹⁶ ‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen;
from its ruins I will rebuild it,
and I will set it up,
¹⁷ so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—
even all the gentiles over whom my name has been called.
Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things ¹⁸ known from long ago.’

The context here is very specifically about inclusion of those previously thought of as outsiders, and their place at a longer table. Those who are being drawn from around the globe are a diverse lot who don’t look or act or even worship ‘like us’ but dramatically expand what ‘us’ means.

In fact, while God is apparently doing a ‘new thing’ from our perspective, James now sees that God has been doing this all along and “making these things known from long ago.” He cites Amos 9:11-12 in his speech, which only becomes more startling if you also read verse 7:

Are you not like the Cushites to me,
O people of Israel? says the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt
and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?

Yes, Amos prophesies God’s global inclusion, but he also says that the Jewish people are not the only people group or faith movement with an Exodus story. Just as God redeemed the children of Israel from Egypt, he did the very same in bringing the Philistines out of Caphtor and the Arameans out of Kir! “You’re not the only people I’m working with, you know! Ever hear of the Cushites? They’re ‘in’ too!”

So, what should those in the Christian make of this? It sounds at the very least like an invitation to curiosity about how our God is at work outside our brand. But to Cherith’s point now, what does it mean to be a people called by his name? Something like this:

God is at work in everyone, everywhere, and at all times in the restoration of all things and all people (thanks Chris EW Green). According to Cherith (I’m paraphrasing her), a central means to that end is that God is drawing together those who are being restored to be a people who demonstrate God’s ‘name,’ which is to say, God’s character as self-giving, radically forgiving, dramatically hospitable love. This living picture of who God is and what God is for the sake of the whole world, as servants who invite everyone to experience God’s grace in the feast. The table is set for all people, and the people of God are the flyers.

Cherith also pointed out how terrible it is when those who claim to be the people of God are not being who they are—misrepresenting the ‘name’ by showing the invitees a brochure that looks like factions and power over and exclusivity. For Amos and also for Paul, in 1 Corinthians for example, this is a disaster beyond comprehension. Their gatherings and their behavior in the community and the world are actually making it worse—they have become billboards of what God is NOT with God’s name pasted all over it. Even the ‘world’ finds it shocking—no wonder the Body of Christ is covered in bruises from ten-foot poles of the scandalized!

So what’s the good news? The table is still open. And we’re all still invited. Even the Christians. Once again, we (everyone) is welcome to become a people who look like the God who looks like Jesus, where the agenda and end game are the restoration of all things and all people, and the means to that end is the Jesus Way of love.

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