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Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time |
Church of the Covenant |
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January 29, 2006 |
Robert J.
Campbell, D. Min. D. D. |
Why
Bother with the Church?
II Corinthians 4:1-7
I Corinthians 12:4-13:13
It’s time for the state of the union address so it seemed a good time to think about the state of the church. We know for sure what she is not and if you listen to many of our young people you hear either a rapture that defies reality or you encounter a shrug that says, "Why bother?"
"Why bother" with the church, this one or any other? Why bother when ball games and golf offer alternatives on a too short weekend and the weather puts up its barriers? Why bother with budget bickering and building battles over what gets fixed first, endless evening meetings, and the politics of people being people? George Buttrick used to say,
“The church is a great place as long as you don’t let the worshipers seated on the one side talk to the ones seated on the other side. When they get together all hell breaks loose. The church is like a great ship, she creaks, she rocks, she rolls, and at times she makes you want to throw up.” (1)
The trouble with most modern church boats is that the crewmembers don’t like to be rocked. They’d rather lay at anchor afraid of stormy seas. We forget that the church will eventually get where she is going. She always has and always will, until the end of time, with or without us. As Eugene Peterson once put it, "The church, equal parts mystery and mess, but what would you expect since the church is equal part human and God?” Or so we say she is.
So how to describe the church to those who would have nothing to do with her or those about to give up on her, or those within who once had visions but feel the mounting weight of minutia?
It’s been suggested that God went through three great humiliations to rescue the human race. First the incarnation when God took on human form and filled the skin of one of us. The second was when God suffered the shame of public execution and disgrace. The third was the creation of the church when in an awesome act of self-denial God entrusted God’s reputation to ordinary people. This is precisely why we bother!
The church is a bunch of ordinary people trying to understand God and in so doing better to understand themselves and God’s world as we try to become what God has in mind for us.
But there is the problem. There are great gaps between what people expect from the church and what they experience. Look at the cafeteria of books, sermons, personal testimonies, and bumper stickers that cater to people who are searching for dramatic evidence that God is present and in control of their lives. When they don’t see results they feel betrayed. Said one woman,
"I hear about a personal relationship with Jesus, but it’s not like any relationship I’ve ever known. I don’t see him, hear him, or feel him. Either there is something wrong with that idea or there is something wrong with me."
And she’s right! The church today is often more about entertainment than worship, uniformity more than diversity, exclusivity more than outreach, and law more than love. Like Orwellian "New Speak," we talk of grace but show judgment; we talk of faith but worship orthodoxy. We forget to tell that woman that there are two things you can’t do alone, be married, or be a Christian. We meet God on an individual level through Jesus or in other ways, but to know God we have to encounter and re-encounter our faith in community. This is why we bother with the church.
Jesus said it; "You didn’t choose me; I chose you." The church is God’s risk and God’s gamble. It is a paradoxical sign of hope. God paid the ultimate compliment by choosing to live within a vessel of clay.
But how then do we describe the church? That was the question that puzzled poor Paul clear back in the 1st century. Even then she was nothing more than slightly controlled chaos– Jews and gentiles, prostitutes and tax collectors. She experienced violent swings and schism. Most scholars believe that the letters to the church at Corinth pre-date every other account of the Christian faith, which means from the very beginning Paul was wondering– why bother?
Paul would never have asked such questions about Judaism. Culture, tradition, race, and how to worship were clearly established. There was always a prescribed answer. But only God knew what God had in mind in this "new creation.” "It’s like a field," wrote Paul. "I plant seeds and another waters.” Early Christians understood planting and harvesting. But we who live in modern cities get our vegetables in shrink-wrapped containers and our dinners from Boston Market so that doesn’t work.
"The church is like a building," says Paul. "I lay the foundation and others add the bricks." This was a great example in a time when you got a cartload of materials and started construction. But today you need building permits, jackhammers, and a general contractor to keep the schedule. The trouble with that image in our time is that we American Christians tend to see our church buildings as the object of our love instead of the subject and instrument of God’s love. When our faith is fitted to bricks and mortar it is idolatry.
So how might Paul describe the church today? Maybe he would compare it to a 12-step group. No denominational ties, equality the norm because everyone carries a backpack full of inadequacies and is willing to put them on the table. And when a person leaves the gathering, hears the clinking of glasses, and says, "I need a drink," the answer is "No, what you need is another alcoholic." That may be the right model for us today because the church is a place where we should unabashedly be able to say "I need another sinner," because only together can we help each other get through the day. That’s why we bother with the church!
But there’s a problem with an unorganized religion just like there’s a problem with personalized faith. If there are no standards we can wander into all kinds of cul-de-sacs. Like Ernie Campbell used to say, "If I’m okay and you are okay that’s fine, but what’s par?" Moreover, the church is only the church if she lives for others. So while we can come here and lay our sins before our God our corporate purpose is never within our walls. "The church exists for mission as fire exists for burning."
Yet another metaphor Paul might use would be to see the church like a waiting room or airport. I mused on that waiting for delayed flights, seeing every walk of life represented and all those people reading "National Inquirer." As a child I remember sitting in a church pew next to a woman with animals around her neck or on occasion sitting next to a big burly guy who scared me to death, but who would slip me gum during the service.
Neither was anything like me, yet they were like me for we were looking for many of the same things. Paul might describe the church as Heinz 57 gathered. But the church is not just a gathering point for people to "wait for Guido," or wait for God, or wait for their overdue flight.
John Yoder once said, “The church is not the bearer of the message of reconciliation like the newspaper or the phone book gives you information. It is men and women called together to form a new social wholeness giving meaning to history. And that’s why we bother. The church is the community of reconciliation.
Paul might see the church like one of those community emergency centers, those 20th century mutants of health care that are scattered throughout communities open 24 hours, and willing to meet people’s needs when unexpected emergences hit. Now there’s a great model.
I used to bristle when I heard people describe the church as a crutch. But the more I read of scripture the more I understand that "fox hole" Christians represent all of us to some degree. When tragedy comes we tend to confuse God and life. We forget that God gives us the freedom to choose and life is filled with consequences. Then God is there to help us pick up the pieces. We affirm it, "The body of Christ broken for us.” The church is that place where we can bring our pain because it was founded by one whose body was broken in order to give us life. God’s hand of love freely extended always returns covered with scars, but is always extended to us. The good news has little to offer those who aren’t in need of it.
And maybe Paul would see the church like that "Cheers" tavern where every one knows your name. As one national ad read, "Many years ago you moved away from yourself. Maybe its time for a reunion." No person can stay alive without someone waiting. Everyone who comes home from a long journey is looking for someone to share their story with. (2) The church should always be the prodigal’s home.
Yet, in the end Paul says; "The church is a body.” It is not just any body. There was a young woman with cerebral palsy. For years she lived in a home for the retarded. Eventually she moved to her own apartment where simple chores were a challenge, but she mastered them. She enrolled in high school and college, where everyone on campus knew her as "the disabled person." Few felt comfortable with her. It took her seven years to graduate. She went to seminary and after two years had to speak at chapel. She typed her sermon at the rate of 45 minutes a page and a friend would read it. On that day she sat in her wheelchair, at times her body jerking uncontrollably, her head loped to one side, and a stream of saliva sometimes ran down her blouse. Beside her stood her friend who read her grace-filled prose around the text, "We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this power is from God and not our own."
For the first time her classmates saw her as a whole person. Before that they had only seen her mind trapped by a disobedient body and her speech masking her intelligence. But as they listened and watched, the whole person began to be revealed to them. (3) We have this treasure in jars of clay.
It is the perfect example. The church– the perfect mind of God locked inside an uncontrollable body with failing speech. A body that by its very nature obscures the message. The body of Christ, humbling as it must be, yet containing God who is willing to be represented through you and me that others might see and believe. That is the state of the church, always has been, and always will be from now until eternity!
1) Author Unknown
2) Henry Nowen, "The Prodigal"
3) Phillip Yancy, "If Grace Be True."
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