By Rev. Michael Malone

Twelve years ago I was leading a retreat with my UCC Church in Connecticut. One of the points I made really got under the skin of an attendee, one of the rock-solid members of the church. Ginny was a hardcore progressive, and she was the backbone of our mission work in the community. She never missed a Sunday. Her partner, whom she had been with for years, was a staunch Unitarian.

What upset Ginny was that I had said in order to call someone a Christian, they needed to be involved in a faith community. It didn’t seem all that radical to me, but I was interested in where she was coming from. She presumed I was saying something about the eternal state (heaven or hell) of those who didn’t go to church. I wasn’t. What I was referring to were those who call themselves “spiritual but not religious.” There are lots of really wonderful people, children of God, whom I presume are “saved” (whatever that means), but that doesn’t make them “Christians.”

Take, for example, Cornelius in Acts 10. Listen to how Luke describes this Roman Centurion: “He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.” He was a good man of faith, but not a Christian. He also wasn’t a Jew, yet he knew God and he was generous to the poor.

Remember also that Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew who went to Temple to worship and did all things Jewish. He kept kosher, observed holy days such as the Passover, and everything else an observant Jew would do, but he wasn’t a Christian.

A Christian is a follower of Christ who seeks to embody the teachings and the examples of Jesus, primarily by loving as Jesus loved. Yet it is my belief that we cannot love like Jesus until we recognize our own brokenness and allow ourselves to be transformed by the unconditional love of God made known to us in the death of Jesus on the cross.

Being a Christian is a vocation which requires that we be a part of the church which is called to embody Christ. The church is the body of Christ on earth, doing the work of Christ in our community and world, with Christ as the head of the church. The ministry of the church is doing the work that Jesus did: Healing the sick, caring for the oppressed, liberating those who are in prison (both physical and emotional), feeding the hungry, empowering women and foreigners, and loving our enemies.

The motto of FCC Ramona is “To Live a Life of Love”. For the most part, that is what you have done for many years. For whatever reason, things got off track, which is what happens when we take our eyes off of Jesus and we put “me” over “we”, and when we seek our agenda instead of the agenda of the head of the body, Christ.

I hear that the church is returning to its motto. You have wonderful lay leaders and a strong staff. If you have stepped away from the church, I hope you will recommit yourself to going back and becoming active. The church isn’t perfect, but neither are we. The church is the body of Christ, and you are a member, thanks to God’s infinite grace.