The Empty Church (Part 1)

" Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

Hebrews Chapter 10, verses 19-25 

 By and large, the Book of Hebrews is not one of those books you go to in the bible when you're looking for comfort or gentle guidance in the life of discipleship. In this respect it is somewhat akin to the Apocalypse of St John, or the book of Daniel, though much more ignored than either of these. No-one has made a mint out of cartoon versions or a best selling series of books based on Hebrews. To hijack GK Chesterton, 'it has not been tried and found wanting, rather it has been found difficult and not tried". There is hardly an 'easy' verse in it. 

So it comes as a relief in the midst of the unremitting obscurity and apparent harshness of the text - (angels, mountains on fire, no sacrifice remaining for backsliders, and people getting sawn in half not being a staple of Sunday school talks or indeed sermons) - to come across verse 25 in the tenth chapter, 'not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some'. Well at least we get that . . . or do we?

Commentators on this passage note its force. My Greek critical commentary heads this verse 'STAY TOGETHER!' and remarks that failure to meet with our fellow Christians is 'associated with apostasy - though the author does not claim a direct causal link between the two'. To which we might heave a hearty sigh of relief as it seems meeting together is less and less understood as Essential to faith in this day and age. There is little sense abroad in the contemporary western church that we'd 'crawl across broken glass to get to church', or that in failing to make corporate worship our Highest Priority, we are cutting out throats - but we should be and we are.

Yesterday is / Today was 'Superbowl Sunday'. 

[My apologies for mixing tenses, but living in New Zealand has led to me developing a Douglas Adams sense of tenses, it is a little like the confusion caused by time travel. (See "The lighter side of languages" half way down this article if you wish to know more about this).]  

I wake this morning to have found this article on the atheist portal of Patheos. The essence of it is that atheist organisations have hired planes to fly above this culmination of the American Sporting year, trailing banners that proclaim, Nelson Munce like to the gathered Christian fans enjoying lunch in the parking lot,  'HA - HA - football is more important to you than God!'

Now at this point there will be many many readers of this post, who protest loudly that there are a hundred and one Good and Godly Reasons for being at the game rather than being in church. I have been around long enough and read enough material on Contemporary Mission to know them all . . . but I am finding that they are wearing thinner and thinner, and given they've only been around for 20 or so years, that means they're not terribly durable. 

Yes, if some Pastor had said to his congregation last week - Look folks I KNOW that it will feel like a living death to you to be dragged away from the worship of the living God in the presence of the Saints, I KNOW that the sacrament is the very lifeblood of the church - but JUST THIS ONCE can we deprive ourselves for the sake of the world, and go 'pester the hell out of those who think that a game of American football is more important that the worship of the Living God', and what is more we will schedule special services either side of this so that we might be revived after this DEPRIVATION. I might perhaps have allowed discussion of the possibility that their might be some mileage in pursuing this line of reasoning, but otherwise I don't think so.

The sense that Very Regular Church Worship is Essential to faith it seems is at best in rapid decline and the arguments against it are almost exclusively nothing more than rationalising our practise as normative.

There is a lot I wish to say about this, but in order not to turn this blog into a book, I'll tackle it as one would eat an elephant, a mouthful at a time . . .

How did we get here?

In the beginning, the presence of Christ was understood solely as the gathered community - 'where two or three are gathered, there am I in the midst'. Most interestingly this verse in Matthew's gospel concerns church discipline and the Risen Christ ( as we must always undertand him when we hear the gospel) says to his church - your authority is mine. It is mind numbingly challenging especially as we have so learnt to dissociate Church with the presence of Christ.

Of course this association between the gathered people of God and the Presence of God goes back to the very beginning in the garden and is then consecutively re-enacted in tabernacle and temple and only finally does the Glory depart as the people refuse to recognise God 'in their midst'. Jesus in saying what he does only restores the link between the gathered people of god and the presence of God.

The Kingdom is among you was the presence of Christ - living and active in his church. Thus Simon Peter and John do what Christ does in healing the lame man. Silver and Gold have I none . . . (yesterday I preached on this). . . the church is present so Christ is present to heal and to save . . .

Then something happened - it may be 'Christendom', but perhaps that is putting it too simply and this isn't the place for exploring what happened - but the result was that The Church became The Thing. Becoming powerful in the worlds wealth. The Glory - the Shekinah - that marked the Presence was superceded by that which is glorious in the eyes of humankind - the Church, empowered by the world outdid the world in Scholarship, in Learning, in building programmes - and in our eyes it looked Very Good (all that we had created).  Funnily enough it was one of the great theologians of the church, Thomas Aquinas who allegedly observed that the Shekinah had departed, that Church and Christ were no longer the same - that the earthly kingdom the Church had built did not correspond to the heavenly one Christ announced - that Earth and Heaven were now separate domains. For as the Pope said 'We can no longer say, Silver and Gold have we none' - he is said to have replied 'sadly neither can we say, In the name of Jesus of Nazareth rise up and walk'. Apocryphal it may be, but it hits the mark.

We had built a wonderful edifice - an Empty Church.

And thus having dissociated Church and Christ in practise, and the tide of the church's power ebbing fast, it was all too easy to begin to suggest that we didn't Need Church, we just needed Jesus (ably abetted by our rapidly growing materialist individualism). By and large, within the older Protestant churches almost exclusively, we have abandoned Church as of the Essence. Yes there are some on the fringes who recognise that the call is to community, that in the community of faith Christ is present and that that is all that is necessary, but they are a small minority. For most of us, we like to think we're Christian and we think we can be so with lip service to worshiping together.

We started with Paul being so bold as to assert that the Church was the Body of Christ, and Jesus asserting that His discipline was directly administered through the Church - to a place where for our own glory we dissociated Christ and his Church and majored on Church - to  a place now where all we need is Jesus and if there is something more interesting or more pressing, church can be dropped, because it isn't the highest Priority.  But I suggest, that in speaking thus we have so lost sight of what the church is, that in effect we are saying Christ and His Life isn't our highest Priority.

In the beginning people faced martyrdom rather than not worshiping Christ in and amongst his people - now we would think it a sort of martyrdom not to be able to go to the football

"Failure to meet with our fellow Christians is 'associated with apostasy - though the author does not claim a direct causal link between the two' "- for most of us in the West, I suggest we think that there is NO link between the two and even if it might be true for some, it certainly isn't for me and my personal Jesus. Apostate because I don't go to church??? HERESY!!! 

Or it may be that the atheists have got us Bang to Rights  . . .

There is no "God AND . . ." - Sermon for Feb 5th 2012

 Sermon for Sunday February 5^th

5^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2012AD

ISAIAH 40:21-31

PS 147:1-11

1Corinthians 9:16-23

Mark 1:29-39

God’s mission, not ours

(LINK TO A RECORDING OF THE SERMON)

“For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.”

First Corinthians Chapter 2, verses 2-5

Last week I spoke at some length about Brockville Community Church and as I spent some time with Andrew Scott their minister this week – one thing very forcibly struck me – that what is happening there is almost spontaneously springing up – and that they have very little by way of resources – and I wondered if these were in fact related.

            I spoke last week amongst other things about how in the shift away from Christendom - that era when we thought mistakenly that the gospel had taken root in the world - social works that the church had instigated, healthcare, education and the like - had lost any sense of being Christian. And I suggested that perhaps this was because we had lost sight of the primacy of worship, that this LIFE that created these good things, was the Life of God which found entry into the world through the worship of the human creature, supremely revealed and eternally true in Jesus of Nazareth.   

That in losing sight of the Primacy of the Worship of God, we had actually lost sight of God himself, indeed God had departed and all we were left with was a vast infrastructure we call church – which we now mistake for His Life, His Kingdom.

Now we are taught to think that this loss of Vitality, this loss of life is only recent –but even at the Very height of Christendom, in the High middle Ages – when Glorious Cathedrals bestrode Europe and fine hospitals and Universities were springing into being, even then when it seemed to the casual observer that ‘God was in his heaven and all was well with the world’, even then the life had Gone, the true Glory had departed, except that wasn’t clear to everyone. The Emperor actually had no clothes but we wanted to believe otherwise – yet here and there there were those who saw what had happened. That you can have what looks utterly like a Healthy vibrant and successful church and yet the glory has departed.

A story which puts this very graphically is that of Thomas Aquinas, the great Saint and teacher of the church was one day shown the splendours of the church by the Pope Innocent II? IV? “Ah, Thomas” he said – “we can no longer say with St Peter, Silver and Gold have we none J” To which Thomas is said to have replied, yes father, and neither sadly can we any longer say, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. ‘We have the best church money can buy, the best human endeavour can create . . . and we cannot do that which Christ commanded’

Luke Chapter 10 – Jesus sends out his disciples – to declare that the Kingdom of God has come near, AFTER they have healed the sick – and we read that they returned rejoicing saying ‘Lord, in your name, even the demons submit to us!’

Matthew Chapter 10 - Jesus sent out the twelve with the following instructions: ‘Go . . . to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for labourers deserve their food.

Amongst young folk in the church there was a trend a while back to wear bracelets with WWJD on them. What Would Jesus Do? What would Jesus do?

Mark Chapter 1 vvs 32-34 32 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. ³³And the whole city was gathered around the door. ³⁴And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

WWJD?? When we imagine ourselves there, hearing the command of Christ to do what he is doing – ‘In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk …’ I imagine we feel utterly helpless . . I know I do. Many many times I have stood with someone who is ill – or even beside the body of someone who has died and hear the words of Jesus . . . and turn sadly away to those things which I know I can do – I can teach, I can devise plans for developing the life of the church, I can visit and pray, I can study and increase my knowledge so my teaching will be better, I can try and do something about the loss of youth. I have skills, I have ability, I have money, I have the ability to develop impressive looking strategies and plans – Silver and Gold have I none? No – I’m overflowing with talents and resources – but I cannot do what he commands. Of course there was another who turned sadly away from the Kingdom – the rich young man, for none of what he had availed him anything – all the things he thought so necessary, Jesus told him to leave them behind

You see when Jesus announces the kingdom he does so in actions – he reveals what happens as the Life of the Kingdom breaks out – but we don’t really want the Kingdom on these terms – because when you express it  in these terms, sick healed demons cleansed etc etc – these are things that we cannot do – so we re-express the Kingdom in terms of the church of what we think we can do. And we use the label Kingdom of God, or Gospel Work – as if this is what it is meant to look like – but when John the Baptist was in prison and asked if Jesus  was the one they were looking for – Jesus told his disciples ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: ⁵the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers^* are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.’ That is what the Kingdom looks like and it is at hand

Why is the church in such radical decline? Humanly speaking it makes No sense. WE are better educated than ever. WE are more precise in our planning than ever – my entire church life seems to be dominated by one strategic document after and other. WE still, despite many accounts, have more money than Ever – the church in the West is phenomenally wealthy – WE have incredible resources, fine buildings – WE are in many places still respected within our communities – WE have technological means of reaching the whole world with the message – we have Christian radio stations, we have . . . we have . . . we have . . . God AND we have all this all this other stuff, how on earth can we go wrong??? The problem must be we don’t have enough of it – SURELY??? More money , better technology, More careful planning . . .

And Jesus says  - ‘none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions’

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
   Has it not been told you from the beginning?
   Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

. . .

Why do you say, O Jacob,
   and speak, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord,
   and my right is disregarded by my God’?
²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
   his understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the faint,
   and strengthens the powerless.
³⁰ Even youths will faint and be weary,
   and the young will fall exhausted;
³¹ but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
   they shall walk and not faint.

These words of Isaiah of the utter Glory of God are as a response to the Idolatry of Israel. The deepest most intractable sin of the human soul is Idolatry. And as Christians we are just as prone. For non believers of course it is very straightforward – it is to invest ourselves in that which is not God and for Christians, it is the same. Except we cover it up by saying What we need is God (well of course that goes without saying) AND . . . We may sing ‘You alone are my strength and shield – but it feels a lot better singing that when we have money in the bank, food on the table, several degrees from excellent Christian colleges, fine buildings,

Is 40:25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?

There is NO God AND!!! If we think there is we have not begun to comprehend the limitless majesty, the Grandeur, the Glory of God –If we for even a moment imagine ourselves sat in the courts of the Living God and imagine He is Not enough, imagine ourselves saying, AThank you Lord for loving us so – but we really need some money, or we really need some education . . .

Silver and Gold have I none . . . but in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, Get up and walk . . . and the man got up and walked - - and when the powers that be, Scandalised by this LIFE breaking out in front of them confronted the men . . . it was found that not only did they not have two cents to their name, but they were uneducated men. They hadn’t even been to theological college . . . Peter and John, pillars of the church, pioneers in the greatest missionary movement the world has ever seen and their only credentials? They noted that they had been with Jesus. And as when they had been with Jesus, they were still with him – living in the power of His Spirit, going where they were led – responding to what Christ was about and the Kingdom was breaking out left right and centre. You know we speak often of the presence of Christ with us, but . . .

St Paul when he goes to Corinth says For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

If in our hearts and minds we see Jesus doing these things and we feel the power of our inability, this is perhaps the greatest gift we might receive – that Nothing we have can avail us in proclaiming the Kingdom of God

As we think about Brockville Community church perhaps they are more gift to u than we might be to them. For they have seen so much Life with so few resources – and let us STOP right there and don’t think . . . well if they had more resources! They seem to have everything they need, no?

Marks Gospel is dominated by one word –Immediately – immediately this, immediately that – life here – life there – healing here – storm stilled there – resurrection here – demons cast out there – hungry fed here. The Kingdom is amongst you – breaking out  - present in the risen Christ. Jesus will not let them settle – to go back to their boats – the disruptive Life of God is breaking into the world and there is no time or space for careful though reflection or planning. You just have to go with Jesus. As Andrew told me, Brockville is at the point where they are being overwhelmed by opportunity

Imagine for a moment what that must be like – imagine if you will what it was like to be with Christ in his mission (they are one and the same) –not the wonder of it – we can all sit back and go how wonderful – but enter into the sheer bemusement of the Apostles – the profound disorientaiton. When Love comes to town – Everything we thought we knew is thrown into disorientation – what we thought was up was down, what we thought was down was up – what we see as weakness is strength and strength weakness. The disciples saw so much they could do under their feet – but Jesus was moving on - ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ They said -  He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

May God give us the grace to know our helplessness – to lay down all those things we thought we so indispensable - go with Him, and do likewise

Amen