A man recently told me about his faith life, as people are wont to do with ministers. He said, "I'm spiritual but not religious. I want to give you my testimony about why I do not attend church."
Now when I meet a math teacher, I don't feel the need to say I always hated math. When I meet a chef, I don't need to let it be known that I can't cook. When I meet a clown, I don't admit that I think clowns are scary. I keep that stuff to myself. But everybody loves to tell a minister what's wrong with the church—and it's usually some church that bears no relation to the one I serve.
I sometimes appear in public wearing a collar, and the reactions range from a puzzled stare, like “That woman almost looks like a priest, but everyone knows that women can’t be priests!” to averted eyes from people who seem affronted by seeing evidence of Christian faith, to people who want to give me their testimony about why they don’t attend church – for me as for Lillian Daniels, it happens all the time. And most of the time, it’s not because they don’t believe in God. Generally, it’s because, oh, they were involved in a church but they got turned off by conflict; or they work really hard all week and can’t get up that early Sunday mornings; or they worship God on the golf course or in the beauty of the sunset.
In other words, they are spiritual but not religious, a religious stance that’s getting more and more popular these days. People genuinely feel that worshiping God is perfectly possible without being surrounded by a church community – they can pray on their own, they can think about God on their own, they can admire God’s handiwork in nature on their own – and all of this is true.
So here’s the question for all of us: why are we here? What is the reason for church community? What is the vocation of the church – a word that in its most ancient roots means God’s calling? Because Jesus makes it clear in today’s gospel, he’s not just here to establish personal relationships with lots of individuals who then can say that they are saved. He is here to build a church, a community.
Today’s gospel comes right after he has told Peter, “upon this rock I will build my church.” And it comes right before Jesus starts down the road from Galilee to Jerusalem, where he knows he is going to die. This happens at a pivotal point in Jesus’ ministry – he is looking ahead and planning for what will happen to the community of disciples he has created. And he wants to be clear – he is not just establishing personal relationships with a bunch of separate individuals who will admire God’s handiwork on the golf course – it’s not just me and my personal Jesus, spiritual but not religious. His interest at this vital moment is in building a church community, and he seems to have big things in mind for us, here in the church. So, what’s the vocation of the church?
The fact that God has big things in mind for us in the church may not be immediately apparent from today’s Gospel: it seems to be a fairly straightforward piece of advice about how to get along with other people in church – and on one level, it is. Jesus, the good advice-giver, tells us – if you’re having a disagreement with someone in church, the first thing you do is, you go talk to them directly. Good advice! No gossip, no backbiting or game-playing, no choosing up sides – just go and let them know what is bothering you.
And Jesus doesn’t say it, but surely he intends for us, when we are directly confronting someone we disagree with, to obey good human-relations rules. Use “I” statements – talk about how I feel, not about what you are. So, don’t say, “You’re so irresponsible!” Say “When you missed the meeting, I felt that you didn’t respect my time.” Don’t yell, don’t withdraw, just state the simple facts in a calm way.
And most of all, don’t just talk but listen too. If you value your relationship with another person, then it is worth it not just to insist that they hear you, but try to hear them too. Because in the end, the conflict wasn’t worth having unless both of you walk away from it having learned something. So learn how to be quiet long enough to hear what the other person is saying, listen underneath what they’re saying and try to understand how they feel. Don’t impose your preferred solution to the problem but invite them into problem-solving with you, so that you’re on the same team.
This is really good relationship advice, and when I am counseling couples for marriage I go through this advice with them in detail. Because the fact is, learning to resolve disagreements in a peaceful way that will result in two people growing in love, instead of destroying the love they have together, is one of the most important life lessons anyone could learn.
In fact, you could say that learning how to love, in marriage, in church, in families, in any relationship at all, is the most important task in all of our lives. And one important reason that I think Jesus brings us together in church communities is to give us a laboratory for learning to love. Love the person who sings a little off-key, love the person from a different political outlook, love the person who disagrees on the way the church should go, love the person who is completely different from us in every possible way except one: Jesus loves them, and they love Jesus, and that makes them part of the Body of Christ.
Jesus goes on from there to talk about what to do if facing a disagreement directly doesn’t work – only after talking it out personally do you involve other people – and only as a very last resort do you end the relationship. It’s all more really good relationship advice from the Lord of love.
But there’s more going on here than good advice: and you can tell this by more than just the fact that Jesus is speaking at this pivotal point, before he goes off to die. Because he goes through his good relationship and church management advice, seeming fairly straightforward, then suddenly launches into some other statements of cosmic significance. If two of us agree about something, God will do it for us. Wherever two or three are gathered in his name, Jesus will be in the midst of them. And whatever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Which is a bit of a scary thought: whatever we do here as part of our church community could have eternal consequences – and I’m not sure I trust us to give God the right instructions on that.
But I don’t think Jesus intends us to take these statements quite so literally. Throughout Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has one message that he repeats over and over, in different ways: the kingdom of heaven is here – the presence of Jesus has brought it to us. He does not say, the kingdom of heaven is a promise after you die. He says, the kingdom of heaven lasts beyond death, but it starts now, with Jesus.
And when, in Matthew’s gospel, he talks about building the church, he is really talking about creating a piece of the kingdom of heaven right here. We in the church are imperfect, yes; conflicted, sometimes. But despite all that, we are also the kingdom of heaven right here and now. You may say “it’s a nice church, but it isn’t heaven!” – but listen to what Jesus is saying. When Jesus says, “when two or three are gathered in my name, I will be in the midst of them,” he is naming the fact that a community of believers can accomplish something that individuals worshiping alone cannot – a community can be the Body of Christ.
Jesus has appointed this imperfect church to be Body of Christ, and to do what he did: heal the sick, proclaim good news to the poor, be the presence of God to a lonely, suffering world, live out the lessons of self-giving love with each other.
What’s the vocation of the church? This is, to love. To love is our vocation. And loving is something you can’t do alone. That’s why we need the church.
On Friday, I spoke with Angie Emerson, a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont. I hadn’t heard from her since Hurricane Irene hit, so I called to find out how she was doing. Turns out, she has been doing flood relief work full-time since Irene hit. In southern Vermont, where she lives, homes are still cut off by floodwaters, people are stranded without food, water and medicine, almost all stores and small business were destroyed by flooding, and only a few stores are open. With the flooding of those stores and businesses, many people are out of work and have lost their homes and livelihoods with no flood insurance. Angie and all the other church people in Vermont are working full-time just to save lives in the short term, and will be doing relief work for a long time. And Angie said she is physically and emotionally overwhelmed, working without stopping – but she is doing it because that’s what the church does. When people are in need, the church stops what it is doing and helps out.
If you’ve ever found yourself asking, what’s the vocation of the church? Why am I a part of it? Why don’t I just be like so many other people who say, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” and who claim to worship God in sunsets and on the golf course and while reading the New York Times and sipping coffee on Sunday morning, well, I think just maybe we can look at what the church in Vermont is doing, how the church brings comfort in many places, and get one answer: the church is love in action.
But it’s not just that the church does massive relief and outreach work all over the world (something that just admiring the sunset doesn’t accomplish). It’s more than that: the church community is the physical presence of Christ’s Body in this world, the outward and visible sign that God is present with us. The church is the place where we learn to do for others what Christ did for us. The church is a place where we can learn how to love. That’s the vocation of the church.
No comments:
Post a Comment