Doctrine and Covenants 163 Commentary Series

Signal Communities: Hope of Zion

by Andew Bolton

The Council of Twelve is urged to enthusiastically embrace its calling as apostles of the peace of Jesus Christ in all of its dimensions. The Twelve are sent into the world to lead the church’s mission of restoration through relevant gospel proclamation and the establishment of signal communities of justice and peace that reflect the vision of Christ. As the apostles move out in faith and unity of purpose, freeing themselves from other duties, they will be blessed with an increased capacity for sharing Christ’s message of hope and restoration for creation. —Doctrine and Covenants 163:5a

What is an apostle? The Greek word apostolos means someone sent out with a message. An apostle is an ambassador, envoy, or delegate. The word “apostle” appears seventy-nine times in the New Testament. In Luke’s account, Jesus spent all night in prayer before choosing twelve from his disciples.

Jesus sent these twelve apostles “to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:2 NRSV). They proclaimed a gospel of the coming reign of God that was concerned for both the physical body and spirit of each person. Jesus sought the wellbeing of the whole person. Sending the twelve is followed, in Luke’s Gospel, by Jesus sending the seventy (Luke 10:1–12). The seventy were to say “Peace” in greeting, stay in one home, and eat whatever was put before them. Like the twelve, the seventy were to cure the sick and say, “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (Luke 10:9). Both apostles and seventy traveled light and were not to allow a lack of resources to hinder their call to go.

In the Community of Christ, the twelve apostles continue this New Testament tradition begun by Jesus and extended by Paul. They are “special witness of the name of Christ in all the world,” a responsibility they share with the seventy (Doctrine and Covenants 104:11c–d). This whole paragraph (D. and C. 163:5a–c) is addressed specifically to the Council of Twelve Apostles and the Quorums of Seventy.

However, we can go further. Are we a people with apostles, or an apostolic people? We are both. Thus, this part of Section 163:5a is also addressed to the whole church. An apostolic people are a people sent by God into the whole world. We, together, are ambassadors of Jesus and the coming reign of God. This is marked by healing, reconciliation, forgiveness of sins, ending poverty, stopping violence, and enacting the worth of all persons everywhere. Our task as an apostolic people is summarized by our mission statement: “We proclaim Jesus Christ and promote communities of joy, hope, love, and peace.”

The Council of Twelve is urged to enthusiastically embrace its calling as apostles of the peace of Jesus Christ in all of its dimensions.

Ambassadors are sent to foreign nations by kings, presidents, or prime ministers. They may bear messages of peace or war, hostility or goodwill. The ambassadors of Jesus come announcing the peace of Jesus Christ in all its dimensions. There is no ambiguity here. The apostles of Jesus are sent personally by the Prince of Peace; they are not sent from hell as heralds of war, poverty, genocide, and destruction. Apostles today are called to faithfully represent the One who sends them.

What is the meaning of the phrase “the peace of Jesus Christ” in all its dimensions”? The word Jesus used for peace is the Hebrew and Aramaic word shalom. Shalom is a fuller, richer, and broader word than the English word “peace.” The word occurs more than two hundred times in the Old Testament, so it had a long and rich history among the Jewish people before Jesus came. New Testament scholar Willard Swartley states that shalom means: “wholeness, completeness, well being, peace, justice, salvation, and even prosperity” (Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics, Eerdmans, 2006). These are the first dimensions of the peace of Jesus Christ.

In the New Testament, the Greek word eirēnē is used more than a hundred times for the word shalom. The life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus add to our further understandings of the word. Dimensions that Jesus added include grace, forgiveness, and the blessedness of peacemaking, love of enemies, nonretaliation, and overcoming evil with good. Further, the Gospels tell of the triumph of wholeness over brokenness, just relationships over abuse, and life over death in the resurrection of Jesus. The first words spoken by the resurrected Jesus to his frightened disciples were, “Shalom be with you” (John 20:19, Luke 24:36). In Jesus the full dimensions of peace are revealed. Jesus is peace incarnate. Jesus, not our culture or language, fully defines peace. Hear him! Especially hear the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5–7).

In the Community of Christ, apostles are referred to as declarers of peace in revelations given at the beginning and end of World War I. In 1913 Joseph Smith III presented this counsel to the church:

There are others…who are fitted through the testimony that Jesus is the Christ…to serve as those who are sent as apostles of peace, life, and salvation to those who are laboring in the valleys of humiliation and distress of spirit. —D. and C. 130:9c [emphasis added]

His successor, Frederick M. Smith, restated this in 1920:

Let the apostles move out, as they have in the past been directed, in the task of taking to the peoples of the world the message of peace, and they shall find comfort and satisfaction in their labors. —D. and C. 133:2d

Shalom, or eirēnē, or the full peace of Jesus Christ, is the condition of Zion. Everything is right, whole, just, and beautiful. Apostles of peace and the cause of Zion cannot be separated. In the Community of Christ, Charles Neff was perhaps the most significant apostle of peace in the last fifty years. He was a missionary with the poor in Asia and Africa, a peace advocate, and one of the co-founders of Outreach International.

The Twelve are sent into the world to lead the church’s mission of restoration through relevant gospel proclamation and the establishment of signal communities of justice and peace that reflect the vision of Christ. What are signal communities of justice and peace that reflect the vision of Christ? I think of L’Arche, a movement begun by Jean Vanier in France, which puts developmentally handicapped people at the heart of the community. The Catholic Worker movement, founded by Dorothy Day, provides hospitality for the poor and witnesses against violence of the government. Benedictine monasticism, now 1,600 years old, is a signal community movement that converted much of Europe to Christianity. Unarmed people, as monks and nuns, provided food and shelter to any who knocked at their door. They improved agriculture and set up centers of learning and, above all, places of prayer.

Koinonia in Georgia, USA, begun in 1942 by New Testament scholar and farmer Clarence Jordon, was an integrated community from the beginning, showing that blacks and whites could live and work together. They suffered terribly in the U.S. civil rights era. Nevertheless, they endured, and Habitat for Humanity was born here.

In the Community of Christ, our reunions are signal communities for a week. I have a list of more than forty congregations worldwide that are signal communities, reaching out in creative and courageous ways to others. Harvest Hills in Independence, Missouri, USA, where I live, was established in 1972 as a Zionic community. Founding members had joined in the reform of Independence politics in the 1960s and they helped in the beginning of the church at La Buena Fe in Honduras. Friends United, a teacher-to-teacher organization, was founded there to serve teachers in Honduras.

The term “signal communities” originated in the 1960s with Joe Matthews, dean of the Ecumenical Institute in Chicago. The aim was to have signal communities in each time zone to signal the presence of Christ around the world. Matthews spoke at a student conference at Graceland College in September 1967. He introduced the term “signal communities” to the church.

The term “signal community” is also a biblical concept. Jesus taught his followers to be salt, the light of the world, and the city on a hill as he taught the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3–16). The early Jerusalem community, described especially in Acts chapter 2 and in later chapters, is the signal community of the early Christian church.

Zion, as signal communities, can be defined as follows:

• Process: personal repentance, conversion, baptism, covenant making, and continuing lifelong transformation to become like Jesus. There is no possibility of Zion without personal change. Nor is personal change possible without others. We need the help of sisters and brothers in Christ.

• Condition: embodying shalom together as the peace of Jesus Christ in all its dimensions: just relationships, harmony with nature, reconciliation, forgiveness, no poverty, and sharing peace, for example.

• Place: vitally important. Change has to happen on earth as it is in heaven. The former model of Zion states that the place was Independence, Missouri, USA. The new model of Zion remembers “that God so loved the world…” (John 3:16). We also remember that we are an international fellowship in more than fifty nations. Therefore, “place” is anywhere in the world. All that is needed is that covenanted disciples gather to express the life of Jesus in their relationships and for the sake of their neighbors. Signal communities are gatherings of the committed that provide light in a dark world, beacons of hope in a world of hurt and despair.

As the apostles move out in faith and unity of purpose, freeing themselves from other duties, they will be blessed with an increased capacity for sharing Christ’s message of hope and restoration for creation.

“But seek first the kingdom of God…” (Matthew 6:33 KJV). There is nothing more important for the church to do in a world of poverty, family breakdown, violence, and global warming. Yet we get so easily sidetracked in doing good things but of lesser importance. Apostles and an apostolic people seek first the cause of Zion and the salvation of the world through Christ Jesus.