What is the church?
What is the church to you? I don’t mean St. John’s, specifically, but the church broadly, across time and denomination? A religious club for folks who like rituals, pot luck suppers and mediocre coffee? A social service agency? A place for friendship and support in the challenges of life? A place to encounter God and be rejuvenated for the week ahead? A place to get baptized, married and buried? Or is there something more?
The church is all these things, to varying degrees, and at times each of these becomes important in its own way. But if a church is just a mix of these things, then we are bound to have all the challenges of human relationships. Disappointment, hurt feelings, competition, etc. mixed in with the love and joy.
It seems pretty clear that Jesus wanted to create a community among His disciples, and for us who follow in that community. He invested three years with them, and clearly, He intended more than a club or support group. In the history of how the church arose from that community Jesus formed Paul plays a pivotal role. Much of what we find about church in the New Testament comes from Paul’s vision of how we translate the community of Jesus’ followers into an ongoing institution that is truly the Body of Christ continuing His work.
It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 12-14 is a critical part of that vision and Sunday we will get an early part of it. Click here to read the text. Reading through this, it is easy to see that Paul is committed to at least two basic truths. First, that the one Holy Spirit is at work in each of us. Second, that the variety among that can so easily lead us to conflict, is a good thing and not something to fight over. In fact, that variety is part of God’s gift to us!
Yet, any look at the contemporary church today reminds us that living into this truth is difficult and illusive. There is no simple answer to transforming the church into this vision of Spirit guided community, but I suspect it begins by letting the Holy Spirit work in each of us. That means setting aside what I think I want or need to receive what God would give.
What might God be ready to give you, that you might be more fully part of the Body of Christ?
This column appeared in the January 23, 2022 edition of St. John’s eNews. Click here for the complete issue.
If you are reading this at a different time, you may click here for the current eNews.
