BLOG. 5/22/13: REACTION TO LAST BLOG ON LIFE-SPAN OF THE CHURCH

I received an interesting comment, somewhat in reaction to my insistence in the last Blog, that a church must reproduce itself every generation.

My respondent was of the conviction that the primary task of the church would be one of worship, and in a very real sense he was correct … except, how does one worship, with any integrity, the God of whose commands one is blithely ignorant, or to which one is indifferent, or which one flat-out disobeys? Jesus said: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). The parting words of Jesus (Matthew 28) are to go, make disciples, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. If that mandate is not somehow central to our understanding of Christian calling, both individually and communally, then something is deeply amiss.

True worship drives us to obey, to live lives of righteousness, to be about Christ’s mission. Then, conversely, to be engaged in Christ’s mission of being light and leaven, of being the children of the Light, inevitably drives us back to our worship, and to our utter dependence on God, since the task in humanly impossible. After all, our classic progression of worship, in both Catholicism and a good part of Protestantism, is derived from the progression found in Isaiah 6 in which the prophet was first of all blown-away by the vision of the holy God, which caused him to fall on his face in confession of his human inadequacy or sin, then receive the live coal of absolution.

But then note: This encounter with the awesome God is followed by a call to mission! “Whom shall I send and who will go for me?” Isaiah was so overwhelmed by what he had seen that he responded: “Here am I send me.” The Lord then spelled out what that calling was to be about. The task given was as humanly impossible as the task Christ gave to his church. He was sent to Israel, which had the form of religion, temple, liturgical rites … but had forgotten their calling to be a nation of priests by obeying the Torah. Ours is to make the gospel of the Kingdom known in every corner of the globe, beginning next door.

In my previous Blog I made the point that the life span is inseparable from a life of gospel obedience, flowing out of worship. In an authentic New Creation/Kingdom community we are to be accountable to each other for our obedient response to Christ and his mission. Our worship of God should, week by week, energize us in that calling. Only so are we building our house upon the Rock! Our life together flows out of worship and then drives us back to worship.

We need to remember: As with Isaiah, true worship of the God revealed in Jesus Christ is neither tame, nor safe. It will cost us our lives. And, finally, worship and gospel obedience always go together. That message is inescapable in our New Testament documents. Each with the other is incomplete. To be continued …