Disciple: Neon-Sign Christianity
By Canon Marlene Weigert
I am a neon-sign Christian.
Like most of us, I need my direction from God in big, blinking neon letters. My motto is, “I am happy to follow, Lord, just show me what to do.”
So when I found several recent conversations and a discussion forum each following similar questions and themes, I thought perhaps it was God firing up the neon and telling me, “Here’s your sign.
SIGNS AND SYMBOLS
My first “sign” came when a friend, who is an atheist, asked me why I wear a cross. My first response was to say I wear it so people know I am a Christian.
Easy enough and true, but as I thought about it, I realized I had more to say. I also realized I had questions, too, about outward, visible symbols of faith. What does the necklace I wear really symbolize to the world? Does it – or anything – really show the world how Christians love, and are loved by, Christ? Do lay folk have it harder than clergy and others whose collars and vestments identify them to the world?
My second “sign” came later that week when I had a chance to explore my last question. While in a meeting with a group of clergy, I asked what their collars and vestments meant to them. They indicated their collars were outward and visible signs they are called to be disciples who make disciples; the collars and vestments are the “uniform” or “signifiers” of their call to the ordained ministry.
It was a good answer, but not really a resolution on who has it harder. In a later hallway conversation with office staff, Bishop Curry revealed anecdotal experience that shed an interesting light: When people see his collar, they more often than not approach him with pastoral issues. It’s when they see him reading the Bible (with or without a collar) that they approach him to discuss faith.
So what does that mean? Clergy can actively display and apply their faith in ways that lay people may not, but do they really have more opportunities to share faith than we all do? Perhaps the answer lies in our comfort level as evangelists. We welcome, but we do not necessarily invite. We show, but we’re slow to share. And aren’t invitation and sharing key elements of evangelism?
I’M NOT ALONE
As I continued to wrestle with this question, I had the chance to ask it of others when I hosted a discussion on the weekly diocesan “A Question of Faith” forum on Facebook. (See page 10.) I asked how we, as Christians, show the world we are followers of Jesus. I was surprised to see a variety of responses, and they all served to reinforce what I had begun to suspect: There are no easy answers to this question. Several people referenced
John 13:35 where Christ says “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Many of the responses focused on our actions of love, peace, kindness and prayer, but, as these are also markers for other faith traditions, what truly distinguishes us as Christian?
What distinguishes us has nothing to do with signs and symbols. Being Christian is the bringing of people to God through Christ. It is a Gospel proclaiming the fact I am forgiven by the sacrifice of God’s only son. It is as simple (or as complex) as believing in the resurrection and knowing it is my salvation.
No cross or collar can express all that. And at the end of the day, that’s what I learned. Showing the world we’re Christians isn’t about showing at all – it’s about sharing. It starts by being willing to share and be vulnerable to a world that needs us, even if it is not yet ready to know us.
And God said, “Here’s your sign.”
Canon Marlene Weigert is the canon to the ordinary for administration for the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. Contact her.
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