BLOG. 1/16/14. THE CHURCH OF TOMORROW: “HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE”
If a ‘church community’ is humanly explainable, it is probably only marginally a church at all. Pursuing my alternative narrative thesis, the church of tomorrow needs to relinquish its illusion that the church can be a human construct, or is humanly explainable. Consider that Jesus’ primary reference to the church (Matthew 16:18-19) is his asseveration (check out that good word) that it was he, himself, who would build his church, against which the gates of hell could not prevail. His mandate to his followers was not to build churches, but to obey his teachings and commandments.
Consider that his commission to his followers was to go make disciples in every corner of the human community. His followers are to be contagious heralds of the reality of God in Christ inaugurating his New Creation (Kingdom/Salvation/Eternal Life/etc.). Such disciples will inevitably find each other, and engage in the commanded one another love, which in turn would make them to be the communal demonstration of that New Creation. That New Creation community would, itself, be part of the witness. But it is only possible, as individuals become disciples and are, as such, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit in the world.
Consider how humanly impossible is the new life in Christ. Remember that Paul’s own commission from the Risen Lord was that he should go and turn men from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God—or as he would later write to the church: to see men delivered out of the tyranny of the darkness and into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. This is humanly impossible. This is what was behind the oft-recalled encounter of Nicodemus with Jesus one night. Nicodemus was trying to interpret his awe of Jesus within the framework of his Judaism, and of the whole temple enterprise. Jesus disabused him of his quest and rather gave to Nicodemus his own alternative narrative, in so many words: “You must be born again. What is born of the flesh is human, but what is born of God is Spirit.”
Where the divine and human meet in this enterprise is in our obedience to his command, that of heralding the gospel of the Kingdom into every corner of the human community. It is God who opens eyes and ears and hearts to the gospel, but he does that as the gospel is communicated in our conversation with others—where the sword of the Spirit is exercised. Much of our gospel communication falls on deaf ears and unresponsive hearts. That’s all part of our understanding of our task. But we are to enter into God’s passion for his defiled world and for his rebellious human community, and that also is not something that is achievable or explainable in merely human understanding.
An institution of religious Christianity (to use Bonhoeffer’s designation) that is humanly explainable, i.e., a church building, a passive congregations dependent on clergy or ‘church professionals’, etc. … can hardly be defined as a church. You cannot worship a Savior whose blessings you seek, but whose teachings and commands you are not obeying and incarnating, whose passion for the world and for its human community you are ignoring.
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