BLOG 9/2/15. WHAT IF THERE WAS A CLEAR FOCUS ON THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH?
Pardon me if I confess that what I see in so much of what passes for the church is a lot of ‘religious stuff’ that is very difficult to relate to the teachings of Jesus—of all of the scriptures for that matter. I could wish that someone had taught me to think and see into that which New Testament writers would designate as “the beautiful bride for the Lamb,” early on in my life, i.e., a community of identity and of intimacy with that one who came to inaugurate God’s New Creation, and to usher in the Age to Come right here in vicissitudes of this present age.
It should be somewhat obvious from early on that when the Israelites left Egypt in that mass exodus, that God gave them a pattern for their lives. First there were those beautiful Ten Commandments, which spelled out life as God intended it to be, i.e. love and devotion for God, and love and ministry to one another in that new humanity. But often overlooked, was the significance of the pattern of their encampments on their pilgrim journey. The symbolic dwelling place of God, which was the tabernacle, containing the Ark of the Covenant and the altar for their sacrifices, was to be in the very geographical center of their encampments. God always insisted that he wanted to dwell among his people. He was not some aloof God who was indifferent to the daily realities of their lives. He also made provision for all of their shortcomings and violations, their pettiness and their unbelief. He provided that which secured their atonement, their reconciliation to the God who loved them and who was their deliverer. God was also very patient.
The story that followed the exodus is not always a happy one. The people Israel very much depended on God’s blessings and protection, but increasingly did not allow God to interfere with the conformity to the merely human aspirations and religions of the nations around them.
So what does God do? He takes on our flesh and blood and comes (as Eugene Peterson so skillfully paraphrases it) “to dwell in the neighborhood.” God comes, in Jesus of Nazareth, to dwell with his people, to demonstrate his love and healing and forgiveness, … to be touched with the feeling of their infirmities, . . . right where they lived.
But then, skip all the way over to the closing chapters of the Book of Revelation, and pick up the perennial theme, but in its ultimate realization. When God shall have, in Christ, triumphed over all of the alien forces of the dominion of darkness, then Jesus shall deliver the kingdom up to God and God shall be all and in all, . . . and: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 21:3-4).
But don’t tune out yet! That is not accomplished in some ‘out there’ future hope. It is the consummation of what is already true about God’s design for the church right here and now. The apostles taught that: “. . . you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22 in loc.). Here. Now. The church is to be (not some humanly religious institution, but . . .) the radiant display of God, and the community of God’s Age to Come in our lives. This is what the church is all about. And every one who is baptized needs to be consumed with reality that our lives and our small colonies of faith and worship are where God dwells—often in the most tragic and difficult, or indifferent and secular contexts. The church is not at all some spiritual never-never-land passively waiting for some future hope. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth …” That’s the church’s calling. The church is not some mindless, or merely religious bunch of folk. Rather it is God’s subversive presence in this world that he loves infinitely. God, create us as such.
