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Preparing the church community for a crisis

Ken Esau

You may have heard the story about school children who were asked to bring a religious symbol to school for show and tell. The first child, a Buddhist, brought a Buddha doll. A Jewish child carried a Hanukkah menorah. A Roman Catholic child displayed a crucifix. Annie, a Mennonite child, brought a casserole.

What a wonderful religious symbol! While it does not convey the power of the cross, it symbolizes a benefit of the cross. The blood of Jesus has created a new community – a potluck community where young and old, settled and visitor, wealthy and poor, all have a place.

Casseroles are all about being home. They are not the food of lavish banquets or fancy restaurants. They are family food.

Skjold Photos

What if there is a crisis?

In exploring what it means to be prepared as a church community for a crisis, a key preparation is to renew our covenant with each other. We are in the best possible shape to face a crisis when we are really “family”.

Today, we seem far away from the days of barn raisings and church communities rallying around in a crisis. Did Christians really prepare differently than their neighbours for a possible Y2K crisis in January 2000? If there ever is a real crisis, will we each retreat to our homes, pull down the shades and trust our personal preparations? And what will happen later? Will we, after the crisis, return to church, sing songs of praise for God’s help and secretly disdain those who failed to prepare like we did? Will the church “community” really survive a crisis? What will a crisis reveal about the nature of our love for God and our neighbour?

Contract relationships

A crisis will demonstrate whether we have sold out to our culture about the nature of relationships. Most people today envision relationships as essentially contractual. A contract relationship is one that is based on an agreed-upon exchange: You do something for me, and I will do something equally valuable for you. If one of us breaches this contract, the relationship ends. As a result, most relationships are temporary, as one party eventually fails to maintain his or her contribution. Most relationships are therefore also relatively shallow, since they are short and tentative.

Contract relationships are, unfortunately, even becoming normal for family life. At weddings, couples may “contract” to remain together as long as their love shall last – in other words, as long at they can make each other happy. Similarly, when parents age and become less able to contribute to the lives of their children, they may find that their children have little time for them. Brothers and sisters can grow apart emotionally and geographically and have very little reason to keep in touch with each other. Perhaps worst of all, some parents are capable of abusing and mistreating their own children when these children do not fulfill their parents’ expectations.

How do contract relationships respond in a crisis? In our “contract” world, only those relationships which can “produce” are considered valuable. The weak, young, helpless and poor will suffer the most in a crisis. Relationships between equals who both have something to contribute will flourish only as long as they both can continue to contribute. If we in the church community choose contract relationships, those with power and resources will likely survive a crisis, and the powerless and weak will suffer alone.

Covenant relationships

The Bible, however, points to an entirely different ground for relationships, and consistently rejects the contract basis for relationships. The stories of Cain killing his brother Abel, Jacob bargaining his brother Esau out of his birthright, Joseph’s brothers selling him for 20 shekels of silver and Absalom rebelling against his father David – all these show contract-type relationships. In the New Testament, Judas’s kiss of betrayal, the disciples fleeing the Garden and Peter saying of Jesus, “I never knew the man” show how contract relationships are a huge temptation even for those who have been with Jesus.

The higher ground for relationships is that of covenant. Covenants are based on mutual loyalty and commitment rather than on one’s ability to produce. Covenants are based on promises.

God models covenant relationships in the Bible when He initiates covenants with humans. He makes promises “to never leave . . . nor forsake” the Israelites (Deuteronomy 31:6).

Humans also make covenants with each other. Ruth is one of the best examples as she proclaims her covenant relationship with her mother-in-law Naomi: “May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:17). One could also look at the relationship between David and Jonathan or the relationship between Hosea and his adulterous wife Gomer.

How do covenant relationships respond in a crisis? In a crisis, we become our brother’s and sister’s “keeper”. All of sudden, the crisis is not about locking the door and pulling down the shades. It is about how we are going to sing songs of praise to God side by side with our brothers and sisters after the crisis is over.

If we in the church community choose covenant relationships, everything is different. Now we are family, and have a family. Now it’s not about what I have to eat and drink but about all of us: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” (1 John 3:17).

Which will we choose?

Covenant relationships are infinitely better, and in some ways much worse, in a crisis. They upset our rugged individualism – those of us with a year’s supply of food, enough bottled water to fill a swimming pool, the latest electric generator and cash, won’t want to hear that we are part of a family responsible in some way for each other.

But covenant provides something even more significant than the trust we feel in our own preparations. It provides a taste of heaven. When the community shows loyalty and compassion in a crisis, it pulls heaven into the present.

Sacrificial or covenantal love is the critical mark of the Christian community. (Remember the song “They will know we are Christians by our love”?) Covenants turn strangers into family. Covenant renewal in our congregations leads us to understand that God sees us as family – rich and poor, educated and uneducated, young and old. He expects us to act like family.

We need to practise being that family with each other. It may be the most radical part of our witness for Christ, a brighter light than all the sermons and special Easter programs we can sponsor. If, in a crisis, the church community refuses to respond as family, few of our evangelical efforts after the crisis will be of much effect. However, if we can model covenant – loving both God and neighbour – great things can be accomplished by God’s power.

The best preparation for a crisis is covenant renewal with God and our neighbour. We may have no better preparation than a communion service followed by a meal together. I’ll bring the casserole.

Ken Esau is an instructor at Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, B.C. This article is adapted from a presentation at a leaders, elders and deacons conference of the Conference of Mennonites in B.C. in May 1999.

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Last modified May 4, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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