If we had His perfect perception of God, grace, sin, others’ hearts and the world around us, I would be glad to dispense the simple answer: “Exactly!”

But it is not so simple a matter.

How many of us have been channels of healing? Catalysts of exorcism? Paid our taxes with money from a fish’s belly? Fed thousands with a boy’s lunch?

Who among us has the perfect, unquestionable interpretation of Jesus’ teachings on God’s judgment, His return, and the destruction of Jerusalem? Or what it means to be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect?

So, in some measure, the question is limited by another: “Just how much like Jesus can we be?”

And here, I think, is the problem. We have, as a fellowship, too often tried to be too much like Christ – without the qualifications. His perfection. His perception. His judgment. His authority.

Which is still His, however we may brandish it as a weapon to enforce our perceptions as law.

There are too many among us who feel that the Jesus we should imitate, day in and day out, 24/7, is the Jesus of the Seven Woes (Matthew 23) – but that we can make up our own “woes” to deride and condemn religious leaders at our choosing.

Here are the reasons for the woes Jesus pronounces:

• Shutting the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces and refusing to go in (vs. 13-14)
• Winning a convert, only to convert him to being a son of hell (v. 15)
• Nitpicking about what it’s okay to swear by (vs. 16-22)
• Tithing the tiniest, but neglecting the greatest (vs. 23-24)
• Washing the outside while the inside is still full of greed and self (vs. 25-26)
• Living an externally righteous life while harboring hypocrisy and wickedness within (vs. 27-28)
• Giving lip service to penitence from the ways of previous generations while planning the same treachery (vs. 33-36)

How do those compare to the reasons for the woes and condemnations we pronounce on others?

Do we have what it takes to make judgments of others like Jesus does?

Or should our judgments be focused more within – where we ought to know what’s going on?

God, be merciful to me … a sinner.

It is in a garden that mankind first meets God and chooses sin, and it is in a garden outside an empty tomb that mankind meets God re-infleshed and has the opportunity to choose perfection.

If you read the gospel accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb and you get caught up in trying to determine how many women or men or angels were there and when and where, you miss the simple fact which is not, in any way, related differently among the four individual writers:

Jesus of Nazareth, beaten and crucified and run through with a spear, is not only no longer in the tomb, but He is no longer dead!

It is the single most astounding fact in the history of mankind.

Other people have died and have been raised from the dead by God’s agents in the flesh, and scripture is not shy about relating those accounts.

But this is the first time God has directly intervened and raised a man from the dead; restored life to three-days-lifeless flesh and bone; breathed breath and spirit back into His lungs and set Him on His feet and sent Him walking on the earth never to die again.

Can it mean anything but that the man is God’s own Son?

I believe that. I would believe it even if I were convinced that the accounts in the gospels contradicted each other on every other fact they relate about the event.

They don’t.

They each tell it differently.

There was a time when I felt like I had to know all the right answers in order to believe. It wasn’t that long ago. Now I’m persuaded that I’m probably never going to know all the right answers, any more than Job did. He didn’t know them before he spoke with God. He didn’t know them after. But at no point did he stop believing.

So, in the interest of those who (as I originally described myself as the author of this blog years ago) “question reality and won’t settle for an evasive answer,” may I offer my personal harmony of the four-fold gospel witnesses in this instance?

On the first day of the week, while it was still dark, there was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

Very early in the morning just after sunrise, the women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna and Salome – took the spices they had bought and prepared and went to the tomb so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. They asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” They found the stone – which was very large – rolled away from the tomb already.

While they were wondering about this, and entering the tomb, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. One looked like a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed because they saw him but they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ Now I have told you.”

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. At first, they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. Then they remembered His words. So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell His disciples – to Simon Peter and the other disciple John (the one Jesus loved) and the rest of the apostles. Mary Magdalene came running and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” And they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Peter and John, however, got up and ran to the tomb, the women following not too far behind them. Bending over, Peter saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally John, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. And they went away back to their homes, wondering to themselves what had happened, because they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had driven seven demons, stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and again saw the two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Suddenly Jesus met them all. “Greetings,” he said. They also came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. – But do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me before I go.”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told those who had been with Him and who were mourning and weeping that He had said these things to her.

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

I haven’t added much beyond an “also” or an “and” or a “but” or a “because” to this narrative, and those only for clarity. The rest you’ll find in the histories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All I did was try to put them in the right order. What I wanted to point out was that John saw and believed … even though he and Peter still did not understand. John himself wrote those words (20:8-9) – an admission of his own growing faith, unsupported by knowing all of the right answers. He just believed.

He believed in the most preposterous, unthinkable, ridiculous, impossible truth ever: that God raised His Son Jesus from the dead.

Because He did, all of the other puzzles pieces of life were beginning to fall into place, and all of life’s questions were beginning to be answered.

Why God allows evil – so that good can stand in contrast and be freely chosen. Why God lets man sin – so that He can fill the guilty emptiness it causes with forgiveness. Why God allows suffering and death – so that He can end it once and for all.

Through this One. This Son. This life. This death.

This resurrection.

I still can’t understand it.

I just believe.

An innocent Man, already tortured within moments of death, struggles to lift himself on feet nailed to a cross in order to take another breath. He has been doing it for hours. While afternoon darkness gathers, He will continue to do it for a few more.

It’s Good Friday.

What’s so good about that?

Nothing, if the Man were not the very Son of God.

Nothing, if the burdened cross was not succeeded by the empty tomb.

Nothing, if grace had not supplanted law.

It’s good because He is perfect.

It’s good because He lends us His righteousness.

It’s good because He commends His Spirit to God, who pours Him out on us.

It’s good because there is evening and morning, a third day.

And God sees that it is good.

1. What is “fellowship”? Meeting together to worship? To be friends? To learn and work together? To teach and enrich each other? To dine? To share the Lord’s Supper? A list of names on a church roll or roster, whether the people attached to them have been a real, living part of that family or not?
2. Is “fellowship” a verb? Is it used that way in scripture? Can you “fellowship” someone? Can you “disfellowship” someone? Can you do either one to a person you’ve never met? Is it your role to do so as an individual? As a group of two or three agreed? Or only as an eldership? And regarding people within your church family? Or beyond?
3. Did Jesus extend fellowship to sinners?
4. Did Jesus extend fellowship to good people who sinned but didn’t fully understand God’s will for them through Him?
5. Did Jesus extend fellowship to people who tithed tiny things but neglected justice and mercy?
6. Did Jesus extend fellowship to people who washed externally but not internally?
7. Did Jesus extend fellowship to people who kept others from entering His kingdom and would not enter themselves?
8. Did Jesus outline a list of explicit commands regarding how to worship, upon which His followers were to decide with whom they should share His fellowship?
9. Did Jesus withhold His fellowship from people with different political agendas … say, a Zealot or a tax collector?
10. Did Jesus withhold His fellowship from people with different styles of sharing His message … for instance, a prophet in camel’s hair or a Samaritan siren who exaggerated?
11. Did Jesus withhold His fellowship from people who disagreed with him about His ministry plans – or told others to stop doing good in His name; even casting out demons?
12. Did Jesus withhold His fellowship from people who interrupted His teaching moments (perhaps about washing others’ feet) or confessed His identity in private, but caved in to denying Him when night came and arrests had been made?
13. Did Jesus ever withhold fellowship from people who did something that God did not specifically authorize – like eating grain on the Sabbath day – or failing to observe tradition, like washing hands before eating, or fasting?

In the “fellowship” of Churches of Christ, there are those among us who talk a lot about “fellowship.”

There is an extreme position which believes that the slightest infraction of anything that might be construed as a violation of a command, an example, or something that sufficiently-intelligent persons like themselves can necessarily or reasonably infer as one or the other in scripture is forever-damning sin. They believe that “fellowship” should be tightly exclusive only to those who completely understand this (and all the other rules) and strictly obey the rules.

There is (perhaps) an extreme position which believes that scripture’s new covenant has no rules, and that “fellowship” is open to all, because God will eventually forgive everyone whether they believe, obey, understand, care – or not. They believe that “fellowship” should be unlimitedly inclusive. (Though I tend to think that most of those who really believe this have long since left Churches of Christ for other, more universalist assemblies.)

Most of us in Churches of Christ are pretty well-centered in the bell curve between these points of extremity. Even so, we all still see “fellowship” as something that happened pretty much exclusively after Pentecost, when there was a church and therefore “fellowship” within it; therefore, the only pertinent scriptures about “fellowship” fall after the second chapter of Acts. (In epistles to churches, where a word expressing the concept occurs one or two dozen times; about a quarter of which refer to relationships among believers.)

Because we can’t find the word “fellowship” in the Gospels – when we talk about the concept of it – have we inadvertently excised many of the standards by which the One who ultimately determines it … actually determines it?

When we talk about “fellowship,” do we really even know what we’re talking about?

Right now, my short answer to those many long and difficult questions above is that Jesus extended fellowship to all who sinned – everyone, in other words – and His message to them was the same whether He was gentle and loving toward them, or angry and defiant at them: “Repent.” That, to me, pretty much levels the playing field.

Should we tolerate or condone within our assemblies as saints wicked behavior or false doctrine – either of which deny the humanity, divinity, sufficiency and/or holiness of Christ? Absolutely not. We must lovingly and humbly (as fellow sinners) confront, correct, and discipline those who rebel – even to the point of putting the impenitent out of our gatherings, so that by “handing them over to Satan” to deal with him alone, they may yet repent and return.

We should go to that person first one-on-one, then two-or-three-on-one, then among the assembled saints. We should do so immediately – before the next opportunity to give a gift to God. We should never understand any of these instructions to be optional simply because not each one is listed in each case where reconciliation is detailed in scripture, nor assume that one or two did not happen as instructed. We should not omit any because an offense was against the church and God, rather than just against a single person. We are all in the body of Christ, and when one hurts, all hurt; when all are sinned against, any given one is sinned against. These are principles of Christ-like behavior in relationships, from the lips of the Lord himself. They are not laws with loopholes. They work, and He knew we needed them, and that’s why He gave them to us.

If there are other, scriptural reasons and praxes for failing to extend the right hand of fellowship to fellow believers, I am genuinely willing to hear them.

But these are all I have found.

Just as I truly need to be:
From all of my sin, I’ve been set free
Because Thy blood was spilled for me
O Lamb of God, I pause;
I pause.

~ With apologies to Charlotte Elliott and William Bradbury

Don’t get me wrong. I love the old hymn Just As I Am. We should be singing joyfully about how God accepts us just as we are through His Son Jesus Christ – and doubtless we will throughout eternity.

But at some point in this life, we also need to sing more about our commitment to letting Their Spirit work in our lives, reflecting Their glory; telling Their Story.

And then actually do it.

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong? ~ James 2:5-7

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ‘

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” ~ Luke 12:13-21

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” ~ Mark 10:25

We’re all outraged at the rich right now. The AIG whizzes who collect bonuses for badly investing funds. The legislators who, in 2000, passed the laws that made it easy to badly invest funds. Bernie Madoff and all the folks who trusted him with the funds with which he made off. Paris Hilton for feeling violated that someone made off with her cell phone.

Good grief.

How about being mad at ourselves, too?

We’re wealthy beyond words, each one of us who owns a computer in order to read these words formed by the pixels. We do precious little or nothing to relieve the suffering of the poor on other continents who can’t read and don’t have computers – or food or potable water – but perhaps do have malaria or AIDS.

The Lord’s brother would say we have insulted the poor, I think.

And Jesus Himself, I believe, would say we are making it nigh-on to impossible for ourselves to enter the kingdom of God.

May God help us all.

And forgive us.

– After we’ve shown that we’re willing to do much, much, much better.