Jesus Creed 20 – Abiding in Jesus

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord you God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind, and with all your strength.
The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no commandment greater than these.

This is a series of reflections on Scot McKnight’s book, The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others. It’s a book I unequivocally recommend for anyone. Each chapter opens with recommended Gospel readings. The readings for this chapter are: Luke 10:38-42; John 15:1-17.

Scot begins with the idea that proper posture is important. There is no better place to abide in Jesus than at his feet.

God’s love for us in Christ is like a cellular connection: It is constantly available. He calls us to sit at his feet, attend to him, and absorb his life and love for us. How might we attend to Jesus so we have constant access to his love and life?

I do agree that we are called to union with Christ — that is our salvation. And I agree that such union is only possible when we assume a posture of humility. Moreover, Jesus is our only source of life and if we are not willing to receive our life from him, we have no life. However, the image of sitting at his feet is the image and posture of a student learning from the teacher. Jesus is the Teacher. That is certainly true. But as the gospel reading in John says, he is also the Vine. Posture is important, but as with all our metaphors, it falls short of capturing the fullness of the reality.

McKnight answers the question he asks above with the following three ways.

We can best attend to Jesus in at least three ways: listening to the Word, participating physically in worship and the sacraments, and engaging in Christian fellowship.

I don’t really disagree that those are three ways. Certainly the sacraments or mysteries sustain our union with Christ. But what about prayer? Fasting? Almsgiving? I don’t think abiding in Christ can be reduced to any three activities just as no one metaphor suffices.

Every time we fellowship with other disciples, we are in the presence of Jesus, and he is in our presence. What I mean here by ‘fellowship’ is any connection of Christians where, because they are together, they are in the presence of the Lord. Because the church is the body of Christ, each gathering of believers offers a whisper of his presence or the lingering aroma of his fragrance. This means that when we are in fellowship with others, we are actually attending to Jesus.

McKnight does bring Brother Lawrence into his discussion of abiding, so he recognizes the importance of continual prayer.  This was a hard chapter to summarize in any meaningful way. I suppose if he had really tried to delve deeply into the topic of abiding in Jesus, it wouldn’t have been a chapter. It would have been a whole book in its own right.