BLOG 1/27/16. THE CHURCH IS ALWAYS A MYSTERY
In a running dialogue with some young conversation partners (which conversations are recorded in one one of my books: The Church and the Relentless Darkness), they decided that their role in understanding the church was to be both archaeologists and architects, i.e., to retrieve those treasures from the church’s past that are of continuing value today, and to at the same time be seeking to design a church effective as a vehicle for it message and mission for today and tomorrow. These young friends were and are a rare breed. They were willing to look with purposefully critical eyes at the church in terms of what it has been, what it is, and what it should be formed to be to accomplish Christ’s purpose in a totally different emerging post-Christian and aggressively secular culture, … rather than to passively accept or reject whatever expression of the church they have encountered existentially as though that it what the church is all about.
I was reminded of this when I noted the stark absence of response and lack of visitors to my last Blog in which I questioned the role and significance of church buildings, which so easily become idols to Christian communities. It underscores the reality that the church is always a mystery, and its expressions are multi-form, as well as a mystery. It so easily drifts into being something less that intended.
This is not a new issue for the people of God. Within a generation or two after David initiated the idea of building a temple on Mount Zion, it was already becoming a substitute for faithfulness to Israel’s calling to be a light to the nations, and a holy nation living according to the unique design given it at Mt. Sinai. Jeremiah chided Israel for trusting in the deceptive words: “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,” rather than amending their ways, executing justice, not oppressing sojourners, widows, etc. Jeremiah 7:1 ff.). Israel was not called to worship the temple, but the temple and Israel’s rites of worship were given to keep Israel focused on its holy calling. At Israel’s establishment at the foot of Mount Sinai, it was provided mobile meeting place with God, and given the regular liturgies scheduled to keep it focused. Their calling to be a pilgrim people and a light to the nations dimmed into obscurity once they had become secure as a nation, and with the temple in Jerusalem. The temple had become a stumbling-block.
When Jesus came on the scene, his encounters with the temple and those who were the “temple guard,” i.e., priests, etc. were always to remind them of how they had forgotten their calling. He cast out the money-changers on one occasion. On another he prophetically told them that their temple was to be destroyed, but that he was the new dwelling place of God, the true temple. When Stephen, after Pentecost, told his Jewish persecutors that God did not dwell in temples made with hands, he was executed. The new dwelling place of God was wherever the people of God in Christ gathered. This was usually in homes, or public places, sometimes in the clandestine secrecy of the catacombs beneath the city of Rome, … many venues.
But archaeologically, all through the darkest chapters of its history, the church was also developing those symbols and disciplines that are still rich in enabling God’s people gathered to stay focused on their message and its mission. Yes, the people of God do need meeting places, and they do need disciplines, and these have and do take many forms. The church, just as we individuals, does sin and fall short of God’s glory, … but that doesn’t give us liberty to be indifferent about our integrity as communities of God’s New Creation in Christ. This is an ongoing struggle. God’s people are his dwelling-place when they are gathered together, and when they are scattered into the multiple scenes of their other six days. Stay tuned …
[If you find these Blogs provocative, recommend them to your colleagues. Thanks.]
