What is Church? Why Church? Part VI

What is Church? Why Church? Part VI

 

This week I’ll post several six-word answers and two longer essays by two people who teach at different seminaries. They are from different walks of life so their take will be interesting. One is a mostly-Irish male with a mixture of religious backgrounds and the other is an African American woman with her own mix of religious experiences. Intriguing…

 

 

6-word answers (at least those were the guidelines!)

A community of adherents

I tell my kids that church is a place where people who believe the same answers to certain big questions come together to spend time with one another. I wanted to give them an answer that is respectful of those who attend church, but that left room for me to explain why we don’t. (More than six words but, oh well!)

I’m there on the road with you.

That Which Is needs no walls.

I enjoy pointing out to those immersed in the work of the church, and said to be deep scholars of the Bible, the following: Genesis 4:26 “…at that time, men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” To answer your question in six words, then, from this first mention of organized church in the Hebrew OT: ‘ A community calling upon the Name.’

 

 

The first essay is by Rev. Phaedra Blocker, an African American woman who teaches at Palmer Seminary of Eastern University in Philadelphia and directs spiritual formation at a Baptist church there.

What is Church? My answer to that question has been evolving and unfolding over the years. For a very long time I understood it as something you were supposed to do. If you were a Christian, you went to church on Sunday. If you were a good Christian, you also went to Bible study, got involved in activities and ministries sponsored by the church, prayed, and supported the church financially through tithes and offerings. Even the concept of being the Church revolved a lot around what one did. Being the body of Christ was strongly attached to the way that one behaved, especially relative to non-Christians. The places one could go and the places we couldn’t. The clothes one wore. What one read and listened to. Who one was allowed to befriend and who one shouldn’t.

This was the “spiritual worship,” the “reasonable service” (as Paul puts it in Romans 12:1) that you returned to God to begin to pay God back for saving you. Of course, from an instructional standpoint, we were taught that salvation was a “free gift,” but functionally it often felt like the “gift” had strings attached. To be fair, some of the strings were exciting and fun; and others did bring one a bit closer to God. But like any club—membership had its privileges, but it also had its rules. And Heaven help you if you break the rules (pun intended).

This understanding of “church” began to be problematic for me, however, (and Janet’s Stage Theory later helped me understand this) when God began inviting me into a spiritual journey that, necessarily, shattered a lot of rules.

In one sense, the call to preaching and pastoral ministry was the first turn in the road. As an African American woman worshipping in a tradition that has been slow to support women in ministry, I saw few role models who could help me make sense of my call. That improved as I moved to another church and entered seminary, but I was still very steeped in the idea of “doing” church in a certain way and following the “rules.”

In seminary, however, God got “bigger” for me. And the understanding of what it meant to be in relationship with God loomed larger and pushed deeper. God simply refused to stay any longer in the boxes I had been given (or created) to contain the Divine. I began to experience the restlessness and “unsettling” that Janet describes as part of Stage Four of our faith journey. This restlessness continued as I served as part of a pastoral staff in a large congregation, and deepened as I moved on to focus on teaching in a seminary. As God was calling me in to a more intimate relationship, where my places of brokenness could begin to be healed and transformative growth could take place, I found that this journey also encouraged me into revisit my ecclesiology (among other things). It was a Wall place that required me to face some things and surrender many of the assumptions and attitudes that would no longer serve my deepening life-in-God. One of the results of that time was that I find that my definition of “church” has steadily become much more relational than institutional. Much more dynamic than static.

“Church” is wherever I am, relating in loving ways to the people around me. It is also being part of a community of believers in Christ (outside of the local congregation), as we experience what it means to be in the process of being and becoming the image of Christ. It is joining with others to learn and practice what it means to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:1-3) It happens around a crowded dinner table filled with good food, oft-repeated stories and laughter, and it happens over a quiet cup of tea. And yes, “church” happens in the local congregation. I can both be church and do church as I immerse myself in worship and service, sharing in the many forms of leitourgia that turn our collective attention toward God, refresh our spirits, and empower us to become our truest selves that we might then be the eyes, ears, hands, feet and heart of Christ in the world.

 

 

The second essay (actually a sermon) is by Mike McNichols. He served for ten years as a pastor and is now Director of Fuller Theological Seminary’s Regional Campus in Irvine, California. He is author of Shadow Meal: Reflections on Eucharist, the Bartender, and Atonement at Ground Zero.

 

The Church as the People of God

The Bible unfolds the story of a world gone wrong. It is a world created and sustained by a creator-redeemer God, one that a nomadic people had come to know through their rescue from slavery in Egypt. These people knew what it was like to live in a broken, hostile world—they were slaves for generations in a uniquely religious culture. Through the long experience of rescue from slavery and wandering in the wilderness of the ancient near east they came to understand that they had a special identity, one that began with the calling out of their earliest remembered ancestor—a wandering Aramean named Abram. They remembered that the calling came from the mysterious God who identified himself only as the I AM—the LORD. The calling was for Abram to have a family that would grow and prosper, becoming a nation of people that would be special to God. They would not, however, be special simply for their own sake, but because they would represent the entire world to God—and they would represent God to the world. They would be God’s people for the sake of the world. It would be through this nation of people that the families of the earth would find blessing (Gen. 12:1-3).

The history of this nation—even after experiencing God’s great rescue from their captivity in Egypt—would be a roller coaster ride of worship, obedience, rebellion, unfaithfulness, disaster, promise and rescue. The surrounding nations would watch as this special people would struggle and wrestle with God—thereby earning the name Israel—acting the faithful bride one day and the sultry whore the next. But even after suffering the devastating consequences of their unfaithfulness—military defeat and exile—the scattered people continued to hear the LORD speak out words of hope and promise, drawing them back into a relationship of forgiveness and faithfulness. Even after the people came home from exile, remaining under the boot heels of a series of conquering nations, they looked for God’s ultimate rescue. They looked forward to the day when God would vindicate his people, scatter Israel’s enemies and restore Israel to its former glory in the unhindered presence of God.

When Jesus appeared on the scene, Israel was still a nation in exile. The people were, for the most part, living in their homeland, but remained in a kind of house arrest under the control of the Roman Empire. Jesus spoke repeatedly of Israel’s hope for vindication and rescue but he did so in a new way. He claimed that God’s vindication was at hand, that God’s kingdom had come. God’s rule and reign would put to rest all competing claims for power.

But Israel was still struggling with God. The people were divided within themselves. Some sought to preserve the purity of the nation’s religious practices while keeping political peace with Rome. Others aimed to force the hand of God by cutting as many Roman throats as possible and fueling any number of rebellions. Still others retreated to the desert wilderness to keep themselves pure and separated from all contact with the unfaithful and the unclean.

Jesus understood the uniqueness of Israel—he was a family member. But he also saw the fractious nature of the people and their inability to reclaim the call of the I AM to be God’s people for the sake of the world. Jesus claimed that God’s rescue was indeed coming, but it would not look the way the people expected. It would come only through death and resurrection.

In a very important way, Jesus would stand as the representative of the nation of Israel, about to do for Israel what the nation could not do for itself: Die and then rise again, reformed by God’s intention and purpose.

If we begin to think about how God’s intention to rescue the world was enacted in the life of Israel and fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, then we are able to see the church, potentially, as the people of God who are summoned by God to proclaim and demonstrate the message that in Jesus, God is making good on his promise to bring life and blessing to all the families of the world.